In the US, charges have been brought against three residents of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) who developed a fraudulent scheme in which the Instagram photo service was used to steal money from various financial institutions. Thanks to the fraudulent scheme, attackers managed to steal more than $ 50 thousand.

According to the investigation, Shakur Smith (Shakour S. Smith), Ikeem Starks (Ikeem M. Starks) and Kadir Berli (Quadir J. Burley) posted pictures of banks in Instagram and then contacted the users who rated the publications as "Like" and offered them to submit their bank data in exchange for a share of the money that the scammers planned to steal from those same banks. The data obtained by fraudsters used to make fictitious checks on accounts in banks and their subsequent cashing.

Law enforcement agencies became aware of the activities of fraudsters in February this year, when two Instagram users who posted pictures on their pages with bank logos were asked to contact their account holders in these financial institutions. As a result of the operation, all three scammers were detained.

Smith, Starks and Burley are charged with a number of charges, including conspiracy to commit fraud. As the investigators noted, Instagram itself in stealing money is not involved in any way.