Baby held in Indian jail alongside hacking suspect mum

Babyus corpus

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in Crime, 5th June 2008 11:14 GMT

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A seven-month-old child has been held in prison alongside his hacker parents in India.

P A Aryan is being held in detention at Puzhal central prison along with his mother, 25 year old Ritu Peter Anderson, and father Peter Anderson. The baby can't be entrusted to the care of his extended family because Anderson's brother P Neville Phillips is also cooling his heels in jail.

The three adults, along with their associate Peter Francis, are being held in detention over allegations that Anderson hacked into the email of a military store manager and impersonated him in begging letters. The suspects were arrested by cybercrime detectives from Bangalore. Anderson and her family are reportedly well known to the police, having allegedly been involved in many "cheating cases, including hacking and impersonation", The Times of India reports.

"We picked up all the four after receiving a complaint from S D Paul, a military store manager in Nilgiris. The complaint, filed on May 16, alleged that someone 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 [£900] for medical treatment for ‘Paul's wife'," said S Balu, deputy superintendent of police.

The existence of the scam emerged after concerned friends contacted Paul. He filed a complaint with the police who tracked Anderson down via the details of a bank account included in the begging emails, which belonged to her brother. Phillips allegedly opened the bank account with fake address details with the help of Francis.

Police staged a sting operation and arrested Anderson after she twice attempted to withdraw cash deposited into the bogus account. Anxious to get the cash she gave her address to her supposed benefactor, only to wind up being cuffed by the police.

Quite why police allowed a seven-month-old baby to be held in detention alongside his parent is unclear. ®

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