Mumbai, Dec 28 (The Hindu): The Mumbai police on Sunday arrested a 16-year-old boy who allegedly hacked into the social media accounts of a woman and demanded a ransom of Rs. 5 lakh.

The woman, who works with the film and advertising industry, registered a case with the Bangur Nagar police station in Malad that an unknown person had hacked her Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Gmail and iCloud accounts and downloaded her personal photographs and videos. The hacker claimed to have more photographs and threatened to upload them online and hand them to the media to tarnish her name if she failed to pay Rs 5 lakh, the police said.

A case was registered under Section 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66 A (sending offensive messages through communication service) of the Information Technology Act on October 25.

Based on a tip off, the police formed a special team to nab the juvenile. On receiving information that the boy was spotted in Dahisar East, the team apprehended him. The police said that they recovered mobile phones he had used to hack into the social media accounts. They also recovered the debit card of the bank in which he had wanted the ransom amount to be deposited and other documents related to the crime.

The juvenile allegedly sent a phishing email to the woman and obtained her gmail username and password. Based on this, he subsequently hacked her other accounts and changed their passwords. He then downloaded her personal photos and started blackmailing her by sending the pictures to her via WhatsApp.

Preliminary investigation has revealed that the boy has similarly tried to hack the accounts of other professionals from the film and advertising industry, the police said.