Uttar Pradesh police’s anti-terrorist squad on Saturday arrested an 18-year-old schoolboy from Urai in Jalaun district on a complaint from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The suspect had allegedly called Miami International Airport and threatened to bomb it if US authorities did not recover his money, allegedly cheated out of him online by an American, and returned it to his bank account.
State police chief O.P. Singh said the Class XII student had taken Rs 70,000 from his father and bought bitcoins worth $1,000.
“Someone, who was perhaps in America and in touch with the boy online, duped him out of his bitcoins. The boy made over 50 Internet calls to the FBI control room between October 2 and 31, asking the agency to recover and return his money,” Singh said.
“He created a fake email identity and photo-shopped his picture on someone else’s Aadhaar card to impersonate him while making video calls to the FBI. He got frustrated when the FBI didn’t respond to his demands and called the Miami airport and threatened to bomb it.”
The boy allegedly told airport officials at Miami that he was wearing a suicide jacket and carried an AK-47.
The FBI alerted the National Investigation Agency, which informed the state anti-terrorist squad after identifying the boy’s location.
“It is a disturbing case. We have for now booked the boy for creating a fake ID and for impersonation. A probe is on,” Singh said.
The boy’s father runs an NGO in Jalaun, 230km east of Lucknow. Singh said the state police would issue an advisory to schools to regularly counsel their students about what to do what not to do on the Internet.
“I shall soon hold a meeting with school principals. I shall tell them that children shouldn’t be allowed to use laptops and smart phones while hiding the screens,” Singh said.