Police opens case over the phishing email sent to "Syla Pravdy"

The Lutsk District Prosecutors opened a case over the phishing emails sent to the Investigative Journalism Center "Syla Pravdy" in early May at the request of the NGO "Institute of Mass Information".

"Syla Pravdy" chief editor Yuriy Horbach reported this to the IMI representative in Volyn oblast.

The journalist received a notice from the district prosecutor's office about proceedings being opened under:

• part 3 of Article 15 ("Attempted criminal offense");
• part 1 of Article 171 ("Obstruction of legal professional work of journalists").

According to him, on May 7, the data on an attempt to obstruct the reporting by "Syla Pravdy" journalists was entered into the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations.

The prosecutor's office reported that the probe will be carried out by the investigation department of the Lutsk District Office of Volyn National Police HQ.

On May 2, the editors of the Investigative Journalism Center "Syla Pravdy" received a phishing email whose senders posed as the company Meta. The email caught the team's attention because Facebook can send such notifications through the platform itself and has no need to do so by mail.

Chief editor Yuriy Horbach told the IMI representative that he had been questioned by the police as a witness on May 14. He shared the details with the police and provided evidence of the phishing email he had received and the link to an IMI news story about the incident.