Boasting more than 700 million monthly active users, Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms. With that large of a user base, there is certainly no shortage of people practicing bad judgment.
Crime Online has covered a fair share of Instagram-related crimes, so many that we created a list of the most egregious. Here are five instances where people decided to share too much online, to their detriment:
Did Soulja Boy’s Insta-threats go too far?
Rapper Soulja Boy is known for showing off on social media. This penchant for online tomfoolery led to legal trouble, when he decided to violate his probation to show off his gun collection in an Instagram post. TMZ reported that that the “Crank That” rapper was arrested in December after officers recovered a gun in his Hollywood Hills home.
Police were alerted of the Instagram posts when one of his 3.5 million followers sent a tip to Crime Stoppers. However, the ordeal came to a close a week later, with authorities dropping all charges related to his Instagram-related arrest.
Alleged drug dealer allows feds to follow his Instagram, gets arrested
An Oakland, California, man found himself behind bars after he supposedly allowed a Drug Enforcement Administration to follow an Instagram account he used to deal drugs. Yes, you read that correctly.
Marcos Hatch, 20, was arrested in March and charged with trafficking alprazolam, an anti-anxiety drug more commonly known as Xanax.
Authorities identified 20 photos where Hatch was reportedly making his illicit drug deals. He also used the comment section to manage transactions. Officers—monitoring his personal messages—found the suspect was also selling and buying handguns.
“[Hatch] obtained the large amount of money shown by selling controlled substances, and he was taking a chance that if he got caught, he would be arrested and go to jail,” a federal agent wrote in the affidavit.
He faces five years in prison if convicted of the drug charges.
Police: Man ran an underage ‘revenge porn’ Instagram account
The son of a South Carolina police officer found himself in hot water after he allegedly posted photos of underage girls on Instagram and Twitter.
Peter Thomas Kiever, then 18, was arrested in 2014, after officers linked him to an Instagram account called “rowancountyhoes.” The account featured nine photos of underage girls. He allegedly was behind two other accounts that featured similar content.
An investigation determined that Kiever used his accounts to victimize several girls, ranging in age from 11 to 17.
Kiever was originally charged with eight counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, five counts of disseminating child pornography, and one count of commercial littering and cyberstalking. However, an update from the Salisbury Post indicated that he was facing eight additional sex charges, including first-degree rape of a child.
Fetty Wap rival wears rapper’s stolen chain on Instagram
Authorities believe Raheem Thomas, 36, was involved in a shootout and robbery outside of a Paterson, New Jersey, deli in March.
How did police catch him? Thomas had stolen one of rapper Fetty Wap’s gold chains, and posted a photo of it on Instagram. This led to a further investigation and, eventually, authorities suspecting his role in the aforementioned shootout.
Sources told TMZ that Fetty Wap and Thomas were feuding, for reasons unknown.
Thomas is facing assault and weapons charges in connection with the incident.
Eminem lyrics result in school closure, teen’s arrest
A Fresno, California, teen was arrested in 2015 after he posted Eminem lyrics to his Instagram account.
According to the Fresno Bee, the lyrics in question were from Eminem’s 2000 track “I’m Back.” The song references the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, which he quoted nearly word-for-word:
“I take seven kids from Columbine, stand ’em all in a line, add an AK-47, a revolver, a nine, a MAC-11 and it oughtta solve the problem of mine. And that’s a whole school of bullies shot up all at one time. I’m just like Shady and just as crazy as the world was over this whole Y2K thing.”
The unnamed teenager was accused of making terrorist threats and authorities found several weapons in his home. An AK-47 was located in plain sight and officers recovered several more guns, ammunition, and a bulletproof vest in the closet’s subfloor. Authorities closed the school as an extra precaution.
“Certainly the weapons were present. The ammunition was present and perhaps even the mindset was present,” Chief Jerry Dyer said.
The teen maintains that his account was hacked.
The 15-year-old has been put in a juvenile attention center, and has been scheduled to undergo a mental evaluation.
[Featured image: Flickr]
