Pakistani man arrested for online blackmail of U.S. girl

A Pakistani man has been arrested based on a tip-off from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for blackmailing a U.S. girl online after breaking into her Snapchat account, an official said on Friday.

The arrest was made in the north-western city of Peshawar this week after the FBI had informed about the blackmailing of a female minor from Virginia, said Tahir Khan, the local chief of the cybercrime wing at Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

The young man, identified as a university student, hacked the Snapchat account of the girl on June 1, and got access to her private pictures, some of them nude, Khan added.

The man has since been blackmailing the girl by demanding more nude photographs and video chat through an Instagram account, he added.

An attempt by the victim to get the Snapchat account deactivated failed because the social media company did not respond to her request, according to the FBI.

The offender was charged on five counts including child pornography and criminal intimidation and faced up to 10 years in prison in case of conviction.

Several Pakistani men had been arrested in recent years from tip-offs by Western cybercrime agencies, most for alleged links to the so-called dark web of child pornography.