On Friday, troubled business tycoon Vijay Mallya’s Twitter account was hacked by a group which identified itself as ‘Legion’. This is the same group that also hacked Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and the party's accounts earlier this month_._ In a couple of tweets, the group confirmed this fact:
Mallya appeared to laugh off the move as he tweeted:
My account has been hacked by some one called Legion who are Tweeting now in my name. Simply ignore. Will fix this .
— Vijay Mallya (@TheVijayMallya) December 8, 2016
Outfit called Legion has hacked my e-mail accounts and are blackmailing me !! What a joke.
— Vijay Mallya (@TheVijayMallya) December 8, 2016
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe hackers then posted a series of tweets claiming details of Mallya’s assets at several banks and passwords of accounts:
The group also uploaded a file dump containing an assortment of documents — including a scanned image of his passport and transcripts of conversations — and provided the link in one of the tweets:
Calling for public support, ‘Legion’ claimed that it will bring more information of criminals out in public in order to bring them to justice. Calling Mallya a “fraudster” and a “conman”, the hacker also claimed that more information on Mallya’s bank accounts and foreign assets will be published as the investigation is completed in some other matters.
It is not clear how the hackers gained control of Mallya’s accounts, but the flow of tweets from his account shows no sign of abating. Here’s a sample of the latest tweets:
The group did however point out repeatedly that the motive behind putting Mallya’s dirty laundry on public display was not blackmail.
Mallya owes close to Rs 9,000 crore to lenders like SBI, PNB, IDBI bank, BoB, Allahabad Bank, Federal Bank, Axis Bank etc. He currently lives in Britain. Update: At around 12.30 pm on Friday, the tweets were deleted from Mallya’s Twitter handle. See the screenshots below: