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Prince & Princess of Wales

Hackers who tried selling private photos of the Duchess of Cambridge and children have been arrested

Two people have been arrested in relation to hacking into Pippa Middleton’s iCloud account last year. A 36-year-old man and 34-year-old woman from Wellingborough were taken into custody after suspicion of conspiracy of committing fraud and ‘possession of false identity documents with improper intent.’ A local property was also searched.

The two allegedly attempted to sell thousands of private, unreleased photos of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their two children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte to a national newspaper. Photos of Pippa trying on various wedding gowns and nude photos of her fiance, James Matthews were also part of the photo collection. The Sun reported last year that the hacker emailed the publication demanding: “a minimum of EUR50,000 “, within two days for the pictures and data from Pippa’s iCloud account.

To prove they could follow through with their delivery, the hacker(s) sent two images with parts of them superimposed by a box. One photo appeared to be of Pippa in a wedding fitting gown with a box covering the dress. The other photo seemed to be of her mother, Carol Middleton in a church aisle.

According to a spokesperson from the London Met: “The man and woman were taken into custody at a south London police station and have since been bailed to return to the police station on a date in mid-March.” Clearly, this matter is far from over. The officials didn’t mention how they came to the conclusion that these individuals are responsible for hacking Miss Middleton’s phone.

One thing that can’t be ignored is the invasion of privacy that was clearly violated. Will this change how close family members capture memories with their loved ones–Prince George and Princess Charlotte and their parents? Many of millennial generation keep everything in their iCloud accounts; but with this being hacked, what, if anything will Pippa and others do to ensure this doesn’t happen again?

Royal Central will update this story as more details become available.