Venezuelan police arrest two for spreading banking rumor tweets
July 12th, 2010 - 7:58 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt
Caracas, July 12 (THAINDIAN NEWS) The Venezuelan authorities have confirmed that they have arrested two people for spreading false rumors about the banking system of the country on the popular social networking and micro blogging site Twitter.
The Venezuelan police said that spreading false and malicious rumors about the economy of the country using any form of medium available is a crime.
The head of a special police unit, which oversees such crimes, confirmed that they have arrested the man who started the rumor on Twitter. They say they have retrieved the mobile phone that he had used to send the first tweet. They have also seized a woman along with her computer and hard disc drives.
The two were arrested at the eastern city of Ciudad Bolivar, after four months of investigations into the case. “Anybody who spreads malicious rumors by any means, emails, SMS messages on cellphones, Twitter, Facebook … or any other means of communication is committing a crime and should answer for it before the competent authorities,” according to Wilmer Flores Trosel, who is the head of the CICPC national investigative police unit.
Venezuela has closed 11 small banks since last year. This move sparked the rumors that the country’s banking system might be in trouble.
Twitter has exploded in popularity in the country and has a huge base in the country. The country’s president - Hugo Chavez has personally created an account on the site and he currently has about 645,000 followers.
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