Kathmandu, March 25

The Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police has appealed to all users of social networking site, especially Facebook, to be cautious when posting personal information on the internet.

The warning of the supreme investigating agency of the law enforcement agency comes in the wake of growing incidents of fraudulent and other criminal activities involving social media.

A 20-year-old woman, who was killed after being thrown off the sixth floor of an apartment building in Lazimpat by a criminal gang on February 20, had met the murder suspects via Facebook.

SP Tarini Prasad Lamsal warned that cybercriminals could spread malicious links to many people and cheat them with a phoney account showing themselves as genuine and moneyed persons. Police arrested Bishnu Kumar Tamang aka Amit and Jivan (27) of Nuwakot for swindling over a dozen women of more than Rs 10 million collectively with the promise of marrying or taking them to America posing as US Army officers. The Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu nabbed Tamang from Samakhusi after it received complaints against him.

“Facebook and other social networking sites are an easy way for frauds and scammers to reach networks of people. You should not accept the friend request of a person who you do not recognise,” suggested SP Lamsal.

Today itself, CIB arrested Neeraj Kumar Chaudhary aka Neeraj Baba (29) of Makwanpur, who made a woman his friend via Facebook and posted explicit videos of her on the social networking site to blackmail the victim. A special team of the CIB held him from his house. The suspect was in Saudi Arabia when he sent a ‘friend request’ to the victim. After he returned to Nepal, he called the woman at a Kathmandu-based hotel for a ‘dating’ and rendered her unconscious by offering cold drinks laced with sedatives before shooting her nude videos.

With greater access to the internet, misuse of social networking sites, especially Facebook, has not only posed a threat for the younger generation but also has become a tool for criminals.

According to police, bringing the guilty to book is next to impossible for the police unless a victim categorically identifies the suspect. A data maintained by the Metropolitan Police Crime Division said it handled as many as 58 cases of cyber crime in the fiscal 2012-13 followed by 90 in 2013-14 and 309 in 2015-16. It has also dealt with more than 240 cases so far this fiscal.

Any person involved in cyber crime is liable to a fine of Rs 100,000 or five years in jail or both under Article 47 of the Electronic Transaction Act, 2008.