Lucknow, Oct 29 The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested a 24-year-old man from Kanpur for allegedly creating and selling fake email IDs to persons based in Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries, some of which were allegedly used to send bomb threats to schools and key establishments in Noida, Delhi, Gurugram and Mumbai, officials said on Thursday.
The accused, identified as Ankit Shankhwar, a resident of Anoaiya village in Ghatampur area of Kanpur, was arrested on Wednesday, the ATS said in a statement.
A mobile phone and a laptop were recovered from the accused, which allegedly contained several Excel files listing around five lakh email IDs created using proxy servers to conceal users’ identities.
Several cryptocurrency wallets were also found on the devices, the statement said.
The ATS said the investigation began after several schools in Gautam Buddh Nagar, Delhi and Gurugram reported receiving threatening emails from a particular ID: “simenbriones9265@gmail.com”.
The emails also threatened bomb blasts at a concert featuring singer Diljit Dosanjh, and the residence of a prominent Bollywood actor.
The threat messages purportedly invoked names of Khalistan National Army and Babbar Khalsa, the agency said.
Technical analysis of the said email ID indicated that it had been accessed from Kanpur, leading investigators to Shankhwar, who allegedly used Wi-Fi and proxy networks to create fake email accounts under fictitious identities.
According to the ATS, Shankhwar revealed that he had been creating such email IDs since 2021 and had generated lakhs from the trade.
He allegedly sold the accounts to individuals and groups in foreign countries in exchange for cryptocurrency.
The laptop also contained the email ID “smithjohnson6889@gmail.com”, which was allegedly used to send a bomb threat to the Mumbai mayor’s office on October 23, the agency said.
During questioning, Shankhwar disclosed that he connected with buyers through Facebook groups, and had also established contacts with individuals and groups based in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Egypt and other countries.
He allegedly supplied email IDs along with passwords, recovery email details and two-factor authentication codes in Excel sheets, enabling buyers to access the accounts and bypass authentication safeguards, the ATS said.
The agency further claimed that Shankhwar had come into contact with a Bangladesh national identified as Alamin Islam through Facebook and WhatsApp.
The latter paid him 6,000 USD Tether (USDT), a cryptocurrency-linked digital token, for supplying fake email IDs.
According to the ATS, the ID allegedly used to send threat emails to schools in Noida on October 12 was supplied to Islam by Shankhwar. The credentials, recovery details and two-factor authentication codes for the account were allegedly shared with the Bangladesh national over WhatsApp.
The agency also found WhatsApp contacts linked to numbers from several countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey and the United States, besides evidence of substantial USDT transactions, it said.
A case has been registered at the ATS police station in Lucknow under relevant provisions.
The accused will be produced before a court, and the agency will seek his police remand to investigate the alleged conspiracy and identify other people involved, the statement said.
(PTI News)
