Police say they have arrested a man after a hoaxer posing as a government official emailed relatives of people missing since the Asian tsunami, saying their loved ones had been confirmed dead.
The hoaxer, claiming to be from the "Foreign Office Bureau" in Thailand, targeted people who had placed appeals for information about relatives and friends on the Web site of TV station Sky News.
Police said they had arrested a 40-year-old man in Lincolnshire and seized computer equipment in a joint operation by London's Metropolitan Police and Lincolnshire police.
The man was being questioned at a London police station, a police statement said.
All the messages came from one bogus email address, [email protected].
"The British government would not use email to convey news of the death of a loved one," police said. "Anyone receiving such an email should treat it with utmost caution."
Sky News said it was "disgusted" at the abuse of the message board on its Web site and had contacted police as soon as it was alerted to the hoaxes.
The death toll from the tsunami, triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off western Indonesia a week ago, stood at almost 130,000 on Sunday, including at least 35 Britons.
The hoaxer, claiming to be from the "Foreign Office Bureau" in Thailand, targeted people who had placed appeals for information about relatives and friends on the Web site of TV station Sky News.
Police said they had arrested a 40-year-old man in Lincolnshire and seized computer equipment in a joint operation by London's Metropolitan Police and Lincolnshire police.
The man was being questioned at a London police station, a police statement said.
All the messages came from one bogus email address, [email protected].
"The British government would not use email to convey news of the death of a loved one," police said. "Anyone receiving such an email should treat it with utmost caution."
Sky News said it was "disgusted" at the abuse of the message board on its Web site and had contacted police as soon as it was alerted to the hoaxes.
The death toll from the tsunami, triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off western Indonesia a week ago, stood at almost 130,000 on Sunday, including at least 35 Britons.
