Equipped with information shared on social networking sites, criminals might resort to any crime.

By | Published: 12:07 am

Hyderabad: Next time you are heading for a vacation, think twice before announcing it on Facebook. A man from the city, who was excited about a family vacation in Malaysia and posted the family’s trip details on Facebook, including that their house was locked, returned to find the home burgled. According to police, one of the followers of the man on the social networking site, who had in fact even put a ‘like’ for the post, had made good of the family’s absence and broke into the house and decamped with 54 tolas of gold jewellery.

However, the Facebook burglar landed behind bars when he tried to sell the stolen ornaments. After committing the theft, he approached a jeweller in the city in an attempt to sell the jewellery. The jeweller grew suspicious when he could not give a convincing reply as to from where he had got the ornaments. The jeweller alerted the police, who came to the shop and detained the person. On being grilled, he admitted that he had stolen the ornaments from a house after coming to know from Facebook that the family had gone on a vacation.

Declining to share more details about the family, the police said the arrested person was not a notorious or a regular offender. The ‘tempting’ information shared on Facebook had driven him to commit the theft. “It’s not advisable on the part of Internet users to post their personal information in public domains,” said CID Cybercrimes Superintendent of Police U Rammohan. He cautioned Facebook users from sharing their personal information as there were always hidden dangers like this. Users can post their information and photographs after returning home from the vacation, which would be a better option.

Equipped with information shared on social networking sites, criminals might resort to any crime. Hence, one should not disclose their location and personal details on social media at any cost, he said, adding that there were dangers like real-time information from Facebook being used to settle scores or for kidnaps after knowing the location.