Screenshot by Teresa Hanafin, Boston.com
04/22/2013 | 3:38 PM
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s profile on vKontakte, the Russian version of Facebook: What’s real, what’s fake, and what we don’t know
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspect police are still searching for, apparently had a profile on the social network vKontakte, a popular alternative to Facebook in Russia.
The profile, apparently created sometime before March 2012, indicates a user last logged in yesterday at 9:04 p.m. from a mobile device and notes his education at Cambridge Ringe & Latin School. In 2011, the Globe reported Tsarnaev had won a scholarship while there.
The site lists his world view as “Islam,” and personal priority as “Career and money.”
While the profile appears to be genuine, it has not been verified, and other profiles purporting to be Tsarnaev’s have appeared on Twitter and Facebook.
The Twitter account, @Dzhokhar_A, is widely believed to be fake (it was created this morning), but apparently the police are taking it seriously enough to report on over the scanner:
The @dzhokhar_a must be considered fake until confirmed by law enforcement. Seems amateurish, but being treated seriously on scanner.
— Billy Baker (@billy_baker) April 19, 2013
Another Twitter account with his name was also spotted, @Dzhokhar_, which was only used in December and which primarily talked about European football. There does not seem to be any connection between that account and Boston or Cambridge, however, and it is important to remember that Twitter account usernames can be changed at any time, leading to easy manipulation.
The Facebook account with Tsarnaev’s name is older, dating back to Sept. 2012, but bears very little personal information, no friends listed in either Cambridge or Boston, and lists him having several dozen wives.
