Scam Artist along with Toddler Goes to Jail

419 : Scam Artist along with Toddler Goes to Jail

4 Jun 2008

TNN

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Chennai/Toddler_goes_to_jail_with_hacker_parents/articleshow/3097808.cms

CHENNAI: Seven-month-old P A Aryan is too young to realise that he is being behind bars for no mistake of his. When his mother Ritu Peter Anderson tried to cheat an NRI after hacking one of her friend's email ID and then impersonating him, Aryan also had to pay the price.

He is now accompanying his mother, Ritu (25) in Puzhal central prison, after she was picked up along with her husband Peter Anderson, her brother P Neville Phillips and an associate, Peter Francis, by the cyber crime cell of CB-CID from Bangalore. The arrests were made on a complaint from S D Paul, a resident of Nilgiris.

Ritu, a graduate in psychology, is a known cyber criminal in Bangalore. She, along with her husband, brother and a broker had been involved in many cheating cases, including hacking and impersonation.

"We picked up all the four after receiving a complaint from Paul, a military store manager in Nilgiris. The complaint, filed on May 16, alleged that some one had hacked into his email ID and had been sending messages to his friends in the address book, requesting a financial assistance of Rs 75,000 for medical treatment for ‘Paul's wife'.

The hacking and impersonation came to light when Franko D'Souza, who is a health officer in Kuwait and a friend of Paul, contacted him to know about his wife's ‘illness.' Paul then lodged a complaint," S Balu, deputy superintendent of police, cyber crime cell said.

The cyber crime cell people then acted swiftly and contacted D'Souza. He has been told to keep in touch with the impersonator through mail. When the officials checked details of the mail, it had a bank account number from Bangalore. The police team then went to Bangalore and tracked the account details.

"We found the account holder to be P Neville Phillips, brother of the main accused, Ritu. Neville had managed to open a bank account using fake address with the help of Peter Francis," Balu said.

Meanwhile, Ritu was in constant touch with D'Souza over email. D'Souza informed Ritu that the money had been sent to the said account. Ritu tried to withdraw the money using the ATM card twice.

"That was our plot. We had asked D'Souza to inform Ritu that money had been sent to her. Ritu was desperate after two attempts at ATM and gave her original address to D'Souza. We then traced her and arrested her. We had earlier picked up the other three," Balu said.