Runaway brides, grooms traced via their email ids

Personal Internet Activity Fast Becoming A Handy Tool For Locating Missing People, Say Mumbai Police

Mateen Hafeez | TNN

Mumbai: The city police recently solved a case that has all the elements of a romantic blockbuster: missing girl, distraught family, links from New Delhi to Mumbai, cyber crime cell, cops and lovers, and the internet. There’s also a happy ending.

It all began when a missing person’s case from New Delhi landed on the desk of the Mumbai crime branch a couple of months back. Investigators braced themselves for another long, possibly fruitless, search as the chances of locating Reena Kumar (24), a commerce graduate believed to be somewhere in Mumbai was a hundred-to-one shot. That is, until the girl’s brother-in-law — who was coordinating with the city police from Delhi — informed investigators that Reena was computer-savvy and would spend hours on end surfing the Net. With the help of her email id provided by the worried family, the cyber crime investigation cell traced the girl to Kalyan: she was happily married to her boyfriend of many years.

“Reena hailed from an upper middleclass New Delhi family. Her parents had expressed their disapproval of her boyfriend. So, the duo fled to Maharashtra, got married and was living happily in a rented flat in Kalyan when we found them,’’ said a police official who was part of the investigating team. The prodigal daughter, with husband in tow, returned to the warm embrace of her family who has chosen to accept her choice of life partner.

And investigators are elated to discover the value of an email id in tracing missing persons. “When we discovered that Reena’s email id was active, we contacted the service provider. We were able to zone in on her location by monitoring where that particular id was being logged in and out. We then contacted the Internet Service Provider and asked for details like who had been allotted that particular IP address,’’ said a senior official. The police traced the email activity to a cyber cafe in Kalyan.

The cyber crime investigation cell was also able to locate 32-yearold Deepak Kadam in a similar manner. In this instance, too, love was the motive behind the Virar resident’s vanishing act — much to the chagrin of his wife — who had reported his disappearance to the case to the police.

Kadam was traced to a hotel in Pune, where he was living with his bride, who happened to be his neighbour in Virar. Not satisfied with seeing his lover behind his wife’s back, he hatched a plan to leave the city and start life afresh with a new wife. The affair, say officials, started a few months ago.

Now, the police are asking families to provide internet details of their loved ones, be it their Facebook/ Orkut accounts, websites or email ids. “If the account is active, it is not too difficult for us to solve the case,’’ said a cyber cell investigator.

“As it was not possible for them to get married in Virar, they left leaving no information of there whereabouts with either family members or friends. Relatives of both Kadam and the girl filed missing complaints with the police separately,’’ said an officer. The cyber crime investigation cell was able to locate the errant husband by monitoring his email account.

These are just two of the main cases solved by the police with the help of technology. Crime branch chief Himanshu Roy admits that it’s a unique way to trace missing people, one that he hopes will be used more often. “When we receive such complaints, our men follow all leads. But with people using the internet or having email accounts, the CCIC is roped in to find out the location from where the missing person’s email account is being accessed,’’ said Roy.

HOW IT WORKS
In 2009, the cyber crime investigation cell received nine cases related to missing people. After monitoring their internet activity, all individuals were reunited with their families

Investigators contact the webmail service to see if the missing person’s email account is active.

They also gather other information such as when and where that account was last used

Data provided by the webmail company helps the cyber cell locate the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the user’s computer. Every device connected to the Net is assigned a unique number known as an IP address. As these numbers are usually assigned to Internet Service Providers (ISP) within region-based blocks, an IP address can be used to identify the region from which a computer is connecting to the internet

It is then possible to contact the ISP owner and gather relevant information. “We would want to know who has been allotted a particular IP address,” said a police official. In this manner, the police are able to identify the location of the computer. It could be in a person’s home or office, a cyber cafe or even a mobile phone that has internet connectivity.

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THE ANATOMY OF CYBER CRIMES

Manthan K Mehta | TNN

From 2008 to March 2010, the cyber crime investigation cell of the Mumbai Crime Branch police received nearly 1,800 complaints. While this may be a small figure, internet-related crime is on the rise, say senior police officers. “People need to be wary about revealing personal details online,” said a police official.

Fake profiles, defamation, obscene content on websites
Defamatory content and fake profiles on social networking sites top the list of cyber crimes in the city. According to an official from the cyber cell, social networking sites including Orkut, Twitter, among others, accounted for 522 cases where users’ profiles were compromised with the posting of defamatory, obscene or fake content on victims’ pages

Obscene text messages and photos on mobile phones
Over the last two years, the cyber crime cell received nearly 150 cases where people were victims of obscene SMSes and MMS clips. A senior official said: “In most of the cases registered with us, the victims were women, who unlike men are more vulnerable to such attacks.” He added that often the culprit was a jealous or spurned lover who wanted to get even with a girl.

Credit card frauds, forgery and phishing
In 2009, the police received 223 complaints of credit card frauds. Due to constant advice and warnings from banks and other financial institutions, the number of phishing cases dropped from 122 in 2008 to 103 in 2009. In 2010 to date, only 13 cases have been recorded. Credit cards frauds, however, are on the rise. According to a police official there has been a nearly 50% rise in such frauds in the space of one year

Hacking
Offences related to hacking and tampering of codes also account for a sizeable chunk of cyber crime. In 2009, 159 incidents of hacking were reported as against 144 in 2008. Around 46 cases have been registered in 2010

Cheating, stalking and threatening
Many have fallen prey to offers of non-existent jobs and fake lottery scams, most of which were traced to Nigeria. In 2009, 86 complaints were registered with the police

The Times of India, April 10, 2010