An Israeli Arab couple, both of whom are doctors, have had their lives turned upside down when they discovered their identities had been stolen by Indian criminals, who used their information to extort individuals, who then threatened the pair with reprisal.
The private images of Ahmed and Yara Salem were stolen by the hackers from their social media accounts to set up fraudulent accounts, using their pictures. The couple attempted to appeal to the Indian Consulship in Israel, and to social-media company “Meta,” in order to remove the fake profiles, but to no avail.
Identity theft online can be unnerving and even dangerous. The couple’s names have been appearing in the Indian media in recent weeks, after several Indian women were scammed by hackers who used fake profiles registered under the couple's names.
Ahmed's identity was stolen once in 2015, when an anonymous hacker group stole one of his pictures and used it to seduce women into giving the criminals large amounts of money.
Yara and Ahmed have been dealing with threatening messages sent to their real social-media accounts by Indian women on Facebook. “Women discovered our real accounts on Facebook and Instagram. We received threatening messages, and people even filed international charges against us.”
Ahmed is a family physician in training, working in a hospital in Safed, and Yara is a dentist who owns a private clinic in Deir Hana, where the couple lives. “We worked hard to build our career and professions. We’re known as good doctors in our community, and people keep posting the same posts accusing us of theft and hurting our reputation with our clients and colleges.”
The couple said they’ve been feeling that their lives are in danger, with threats against them only escalating. “Some posts in a Facebook group were inciting violence against us,” Ahmed said. “I was in Istanbul for medical training, and as soon as I posted my location on social media, it was bombarded with posts calling to kill me. The situation has become life threatening, and is hurting us more every day.”
According the Ahmed and Yara, they asked whoever they could for help, including appealing to Meta, the company operating Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, but with no success.
In response to Ynet's query, Meta deleted a small number of the fake profiles, and issued a statement: “Our global teams found that the profiles violated our terms of service, and were deleted.” Meta asked for direct links to the fake profiles, which number in the hundreds, as opposed to screenshots, therefore dozens of fake accounts are still active.
The couple have also filed charges with the police. A police official involved with the case said that “the police don’t have extensive tools to handle such cases, especially when the criminals are working outside of Israel’s borders. The police manages to work against them only in life threatening situations.”
Guy Ofir, a lawyer who specialized in cases involving international entities, said that “Google, Facebook, YouTube and others have developed an automated procedure for removing content. They can locate and remove whatever they wish, and the court will order them to do so.”