Kerala man hacks Qatar royal family member’s email ID, loots 5.2 crore

THRISSUR: The email ID of a Qatar royal family member was hacked and a sum of Rs 5.2 crore was illegally amassed. The email ID of Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the head of the Qatar Museum Authority was used to send a mail to the museum saying that an agreement had been signed with an American Jerome Napoleon to sell gold plated paintings of Qatar Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. It also instructed the museum to transfer Rs 5.20 crore as advance payment to Napoleon’ account.

A while later, another email was sent from her mail ID to transfer the amount to the account of Sunil Menon, and the museum authority did so.It was reported that the Qatar royal family member’s email ID was hacked by Sunil Menon, the son of M Bhaskara Menon of Sree Narayanapuram. Menon had been working in various countries, including Qatar, for the past 15 years.

IT experts from the museum’s financial analysis unit doubted the truthfulness of the email that was received by them. It had also been detected that Sunil had created a fake email ID in Napoleon’s name.

The police froze the fixed deposit of Rs 4.5 crore in Sunil’s name and seized his jeep, following the complaint of Shafeek, an  employee of the financial analysis unit to the Thrissur SP MK Pushkaran.

“Rs 1.5 lakh was seized from Sunil in cash”, said Kodungallurar CI Bijukumar, who led the investigation team.The 47-year old Sunil Menon was arrested on Wednesday for fraud. The CI said that the accused will be produced in court on Thursday. Menon was arrested from Kochi when he tried to flee the country.