Italians Hunt Virtual Burglar

If someone breaks into your property and steals your belongings, you call the police. But what do you do if someone breaks into your virtual property and steals your virtual belongings?

If you’re Paola Letizia of Palermo, Italy, then you call the police.

44 year old Letizia is a player of the Facebook game Pet Society. One day she logged onto her account to find that the seven room home she’d built for her virtual pet, Blue Cat, had been stripped bare. Amongst other things the thief had taken Blue Cat’s mirror, pool table and even jacuzzi! In fact the only thing left was the cat himself.

It appears that a hacker cracked Letizia’s password and messed up her account. The missing Pet Society items are estimated to have cost her around $140 of real money.

Italian authorities seem to be taking the case seriously. Whatever the legal status of “virtual burglary”, this sort of account hacking could result in up to five years in a (real) Italian prison.