The head of Instagram and his family are being targeted by bogus 911 calls — including one that sent armed police officers and hostage negotiators to a Manhattan home on Sunday, and another that had San Francisco cops descending on a Southern California mansion late last week, The Post has learned.
On Sunday, a 911 caller claiming to be the brother of Instagram boss Adam Mosseri told cops an armed man had barricaded himself in his Greenwich Village apartment — triggering a heavy police response involving the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit that shut down several city blocks, according to police.
Within a half-hour, NYPD went so far as to tell the public to avoid the city’s shortest street near 10th Avenue as cops fielded mixed reports — ranging from an unhinged, AR-15-toting man holding a wounded woman hostage to a man holed up in the apartment alone with a handgun, sources and police said.
But when officers broke down the door to the one-bedroom condo around 11 a.m., there was no one there, according to the NYPD.
Cops would later find the crank caller falsely used a phone number belonging to Mosseri’s brother to make the call, sources said.
Late last week, Mosseri’s own mansion in San Francisco’s Mission District was “swatted” — the practice of calling in phony 911 calls to send cops to a rival’s doorstep, according to law enforcement sources.
The San Francisco Police Department descended on the $6 million family home only to discover the 911 call was a hoax, sources said.
The bogus emergencies appears to be part of a pattern — over the last few months, other Facebook and Instagram execs have faced similar harassment, sources added.
The head of security for Facebook, which owns Instagram, told NYPD detectives that the social media giant was working with the FBI and Secret Service over the incidents, according to sources.
In January, another senior Facebook executive was targeted when a man called authorities in Palo Alto, California, and said he had shot his wife, tied up his children, and had barricaded himself in his home with pipe bombs, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Police officers surrounded the house and when the senior Facebook executive emerged, he told them he had no idea what was going on. According to the report, another Instagram executive was targeted in San Francisco two weeks later.
It was unclear how many other incidents have occurred over the last few months or why the callers were targeting the heads of social media companies.
“Several of our executives and members of their families have been targeted by false police reports,” confirmed Facebook spokesman Anthony Harrison. “We are working closely with local authorities to ensure everyone’s safety and appreciate the support and responsiveness of our first responders.”
Sergeant Samy Tarazi with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s office, whose jurisdiction covers Google’s head office, told the Journal the attacks were likely retaliation for actions the technology companies had taken, including removing accounts linked to criminals.
The actions had “pissed off the bad guys,” Tarazi speculated.
Shortly before the attack in January, a list of home addresses for some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names appeared on the far-right message board 8chan. According to the Journal, at least one of the celebrities on that list was swatted afterward.
The FBI did not immediately respond for comment but one source in the bureau confirmed they were looking into the spate of targeted attacks.
Adam Mosseri could not be reached, while his brother, who is listed as the owner of the apartment on public records, did not return messages.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona