Indian Police Plan Google Questioning Over 513,847 Fake Gmail Accounts

Gujarat police uncovered 513,847 fake Gmail IDs and passwords after dismantling an email network this week and arresting two people. Police described the network as sending inter-state bomb threats. The accounts were reportedly created and used since 2022. The probe began after the Gujarat state government received a bomb threat email on September 10 that also threatened countries cooperating with India during the BRICS summit in New Delhi. Vivek Bheda of Gujarat police told Reuters the threats were false. One arrested person contacted a Bangladesh-based buyer who bought account batches and paid partly in cryptocurrency. Each fake account had two-factor authentication enabled. What is contested Sources do not dispute the core account. Bheda said police will write to Google asking for policy changes so safeguards cannot be bypassed, and plan to designate Google a subject of the investigation. What is unresolved Google had not responded to a request for comment. Any legal charges or penalties Google could face remain unclear. India reports cybercrime losses exceeding $2 billion a year from financial scams, and authorities have separately linked Google's Firebase platform to financial scams.