Mumbai airport threatened with bombing in bitcoin blackmail plot
India’s anti-terrorism squad has made an arrest after an unnamed person threatened to bomb the International Airport of Mumbai unless it handed over $1 million worth of bitcoin within 48 hours.
According to The Times of India, the threat was emailed to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj airport at around 11 am on Thursday.
The email’s subject read “Blast,” followed by, “This is a final warning to your airport. We will blast Terminal 2 within 48 hours unless one million dollars in Bitcoin are transferred to the address. Another alert will be after 24 Hrs.”
An executive of Mumbai International Airport Limited said, “I was at the quality and customer care center in the airport when I came across the threat mail. The threat mail claimed to blow up the airport within 48 hours if the ransom was not paid.”
The Free Press Journal reports that a suspect from the city of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, has been arrested by Maharashtra’s anti-terrorism squad and accused of sending the threatening email.
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Police from Sahar, Mumbai, reportedly tracked down the internet protocol (IP) address of the unnamed individual who sent the threat, providing a rough idea of where the email was sent from.
Sahar police said, “The cyber section in the police station has tracked the location and the team is in the process of identifying the person behind sending the threat.”
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