Teen hacks into FB accounts, pockets lakhs

Rajkot: A 19-year-old boy from Ahmedabad was arrested for allegedly hacking into the Facebook accounts of people and cheating them into sending cash to him on some or the other pretext.
Genius Patel, who works as a delivery boy for Swiggy, was picked up from his house in Meghaninagar area of Ahmedabad.

Cybercrime officials said that Genius would hack into accounts of those people who had mentioned their mobile numbers on Facebook or used the phone number as their password.

After hacking into the account, he would request for money in different amounts, mostly using illness as the reason for the urgent cash requirement.

In Rajkot, Genius had hacked into accounts of two youngsters - Dhaval Nasit, a resident of Bhaktinagar area and Rutul Thummar, who lives on Kothariya Road. Using Dhaval's account, he posted a request for Rs 8,500 and from Rutul's he asked for Rs 5,000. Police said Rutul's maternal uncle's son transferred Rs 5000 via Paytm.

After few days, Rutul got to know that his account was hacked when his cousin inquired about the urgent cash requirement. Rutul and Dhaval lodged complaints with the cyber crime cell of the city police.

"Genius used to request money transfer in his Paytm account. Using his registered Paytm number, we tracked him to Ahmedabad and arrested him on Wednesday night," said JS Geddam, assistant commissioner of police, cyber crime.

According to Gedam, Genius has pocketed at least Rs one lakh by hacking into the accounts of nearly 40-50 people. "We are trying to trace other victims of this fraud," he said.

In January this year, Genius had similarly hacked the Facebook account of a woman running an non-government organization in Pardi village of Valsad district.