Man Sends Hoax e-mails Threatening to Bomb NSE

The Mumbai Crime Branch's Cyber Crime Cell arrested a Kolkata travel agent on October 16, 2007 for sending threatening e-mails about bombing NSE and BSE buildings on October 15, 2007. The threat e-mails were three in total, which showed the sender's address as abdul.rashman@yahoo.co.in. But the e-mails were soon found to be false.

The 34-year-old accused, Dinesh Kumar Gupta, who described himself as an ISI agent was dragged to Mumbai on October 17, 2007 after his arrest from his home in Kolkata.

The e-mails were addressed to Assistant Vice President Suprabhat Lala of NSE at Bandra Kurla Complex. In a statement, Rakesh Maria, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), said that no sooner was the offense registered at the police station of Bandra Kurla area that their team of officials on cyber crime got down to action. After making the necessary enquiries with www.yahoo.com, they found out that the messages originated from one of the Kolkata's cyber café. ExpressIndia published Maria's statement on October 18, 2007.

Mumbai police, who deputed a team to Kolkata, was able to trace the e-mail source to B.C. Shaw and Co. Cyber Café. The team went through the mandatory register book maintained by all cyber cafes and narrowed down on one Munnabhai's name, but after some time, the team determined that it referred to an assumed name of Gupta. On October 16, 2007, the Cyber Crime Cell officials caught Gupta from his home, the police confirmed.

Explaining what motivated Gupta to send the threat e-mails, Rakesh Maria said that Gupta tried to cause the sensex to crash, so that he could recover his losses. Dinesh Gupta had recently tried the stock market trade where he suffered Rs.37,000 in losses. So he thought that by sending the threatening e-mails, it would cause panic in the stock market and the share prices would fall. When that happens, he would buy the low-priced shares, which if he sold later when the prices rose could make profits. DNA reported this on October 18, 2007.

Gupta has been detained under Section 50C (II) of the Indian Penal Code for committing criminal offense of threatening causing grievous injury or death.

Related article: Man Sues and Wins against ISP for Spamming Mail

» SPAMfighter News - 11/3/2007