Hyderabad man sends hoax mails to airport to avoid holiday with Chennai girlfriend

A man, identified as Mothaparthi Vamshi (31) is said to have sent the hoax mail to three City Police Commissioners to get out of going on a holiday with his girlfriend.

“He had been in touch with a woman from Chennai. The couple had planned a trip to Mumbai and Goa to get to know each other better, and Vamshi was supposed to book the tickets. However,he has been facing financial crisis,” said Limba Reddy, DCP Task force Hyderabad.

To get out of the trip, he sent mails from a fake account about simultaneous hijack attempts at Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad airports creating panic. Security had been beefed up in all these airports following the threat.

“He did not want his girlfriend to know about his financial issues after she declined to cancel the plan. He told her that flights have been cancelled because of high alert at the airports,” said the DCP.

He had earlier created a fake flight ticket of April 16 from Chennai to Mumbai and mailed the same to her.

The Hyderabad police got the information from Mumbai Commissioner that the mail had been generated from Hyderabad.

With help from Cyber police of Hyderabad, the Task Force team tracked down the IP address of the computer.

“The mail had been sent from a local internet cafe in SR Nagar. It was hard to identify initially as several people had used the computer. However, the cafe had CCTV cameras,” said Reddy.

After examining 15 people, including Vamshi, who used the computer on that day, the Task Force zeroed in on the accused.

After Vamshi confessed to his crime, the police also realised that he had a history of cyber crime.

“Few months back, he had duped a woman on a matrimonial site. He took Rs. 6 lakh from the woman and promised to marry her,” the DCP added.

A case has been registered against Vamshi under section 182 (False information, with intent to cause public servant to use his lawful power to the injury of another person), 419 (Punishment for cheating by impersonation) of IPC and  66 D of IT Act (Punishment for cheating by impersonation by using computer resource).

On April 16, a high alert was issued in three airports after the Mumbai police received an email stating that a woman had heard six unidentified youths discuss hijacking of three flights in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai on Sunday.

Mumbai Police then forwarded the mail to Mumbai Airport Security Group which issued a high alert.

The mail also stated that 23 people would board flights in three cities of Hyderabad,Chennai and Mumbai.