FB new tool for criminal activities in Assam

Guwahati: Facebook has become a new tool for criminal in Assam. Recently, the criminal investigation department (CID) cyber crime cell and city police crime branch have taken up a number of cases in which people, mostly women, have fallen prey to cyber criminals who fished out their personal details and then blackmailed them.
In most of the cases, an unknown sender sends friend request or a hyper link of promotional offers like free mobile recharge or online shopping to most of the respondents.
“As soon as someone clicks on the link or accepts the request, his or her personal information available over the Internet is fished out by the sender. In one of the cases, a culprit after hacking the personal details of a woman here, downloaded all her images and then morphed them with porn images. Then a message was sent to the victim saying that if she doesn’t pay Rs one lakh, her images would be made viral all over the internet,” said a CID official.
While investigating a case recently, the investigation agency has only managed to track down one such Facebook case that originated in Baksa district. But police are yet to identify the culprit.
In July this year, one Moon Bora of Jorhat was arrested by the CID cyber crime cell of Assam Police in Jorhat for allegedly uploading obscene photos of a girl on Facebook.
In a different modus operandi by the cyber criminals, emails and SMS are sent saying that the respondent has won millions of dollars and he or she needs to send his or her details to claim the award.
“Some of the cases have been traced to Kenya and we have sought the help of police there too,” added the official.
With fast-growing social networking sites and easy availability of the Internet in Assam, cyber crime has gone up many folds.