A 26-year-old man allegedly hacked social media accounts of around 400 girls and then blackmailed them for money. The accused, identified as Vinit Mishra, was nabbed by officials from the cyber crime unit of the Lucknow Police on Tuesday, following a complaint by one of his victims.

According to the police, recently, a girl lodged a complaint, stating that an unidentified man was blackmailing her for money using her objectionable photos which he had accessed after hacking her Facebook account. Following this, an investigation was initiated, leading to the Mishra's arrest on Tuesday.

During interrogation, Mishra, a Class 8 dropout, revealed that he learnt the trick to blackmail girls from a video on YouTube. He would send web links to girls on various social media platforms, stating that it is a link to their obscene photographs. The girls who opened the link were asked to enter their email id and password. In this way, he used to gain access to their social media accounts.

After unauthorized gaining access to social Media accounts of girls, Mishra used to download their objectionable pictures, video and chats in order to extort money. He threatened the girls saying that that he would circulate the obscene content on social media if they refused or failed to pay him money.

“Mishra hacked social media accounts and accessed photos, mobile chats of about 400 girls and sent threats to upload their phone contents if not paid money,” the report quoted a police officer as saying. His laptop has been seized and sent for forensic examination.