10-Year-Old Sends Threatening Mails To Family, Seeks Rs 10 Crore Cyber Ransom

This seems to be coming straight out of a thriller. A 10-year-old boy allegedly sent threatening emails to his own family to get lakhs of rupees as ransom. Police in Indrapuram, Ghaziabad, has filed a case in which a family alleged that they were receiving emails asking for money. It was later found out that the person behind this was the 10-year-old son of the complainant.

According to police, the FIR in this regard was filed on January 23. The complainant is a government employee and lives in the area with his wife and two children. One of his sons, who is just 10-year-old is said to be the brain behind the misery. 
 There are 4 members in this family – husband-wife and two children, a daughter who is 13-year-old and a son who is 10-year-old.

Both the children also have their own mobile phones along with separate email IDs. The misery began on January 1 and went on till January 24. The threats were being made to get any amount between ₹ 10 lakh and ₹ 10 crore.

In the email, the family members were threatened that their throats would be slit if they don’t pay the money. The threats were made regarding the teenaged girl in the family. The email used to contain minute details, personal information about the family members and threatened to share it on social media.

This left police puzzled and the team started scanning for hidden camera or malware installed in the house but cops couldn’t find anything.

During the investigation, the police got suspicious about the 10-year-old boy as only an insider could have got access to such minute details of the family.

Read This Story in Hindi (हिंदी में पढ़े ) : साइबर क्राइम का सबसे सनसनीखेज खुलासा: 10 साल के बच्चे ने अपने परिवार की पर्सनल लाइफ कैसे की Hack, जानिए

Counselling was done and the investigators were able to get all the key information. Finally, to the utter disbelief of the parents, it was found out that their only son planned the entire scheme. Since the boy is under 12 years of age, no action will be taken against him.

Abhay Kumar Mishra, circle officer 1 said that since attending a workshop on cybercrime in the school, this was in the mind of the child. 

During counselling, Police came to know that one month ago there was a program about cybercrime that took place at the boy’s school, in which the method of cybercrime and its rescue was discussed. It was here he was inspired to plan it. He created a fake email ID and started sending threatening messages on his own mother’s email ID from ₹ 10 crore asking for a ransom. And also threatened to forcibly marry a minor daughter for not giving money; or to harm both children. He told that he had seen a video of mobile hacking on YouTube.


Here are the security tips to keep your kids away from cybercrimes:

1) Keep your phones away from kids.

2) Give the phone to the children for only 1 hour and keep an eye on it.

 3) Keep checking the history of what the child does on the phone, what he searches. 
 
 4) Save the entire history of what a child sees on YouTube and keep checking

5) Give cyber safety tips to children, so keep on giving from time to time.

 6) If the child is sad during the time of the phone, then talk to him freely.

 7) Keep in mind that there is no bank account link in that phone.

8) Always keep track of which games the children play.