Yesterday, the London Metropolitan Police reported that they had nabbed the infamous hacker Topiary, famed spokesperson for the hacker group Lulz Security. However, today, rumors and allegations are floating up to the surface that a brilliant disinformation campaign might have led police to arresting the wrong guy. A report published at DailyTech by Jason Mick cites a chat log released by well known anti-LulzSec hacker th3j3st3r that seems to suggest that the Metro Police may have been fishing off a LulzSec disinformation campaign.

The arrest happened yesterday when a 19-year-old male was arrested on one of the Shetland Islands off the northern coast of Britain’s mainland and he was brought to London for questioning. The police also reported the search of the home of a 17-year-old male in Lincolnshire, but not an arrest.

After the announcement of the arrest, the @LulzSec Twitter account went silent, July 27; and Topiary’s Twitter account @atopiary has not been updated since last Friday, July 21. His last tweet—and the only tweet on the page currently—reads: “You cannot arrest an idea.”

The rumor that this might be the wrong Topiary hinges on conflicts between details released by anti-LulzSec groups on the Internet such as LulzSecExposed. Who have broadcast numerous details and “dox” on who they believe are members of the LulzSec hacker group. They foment the major source of information explaining why they believe the Metropolitan Police do not have Topiary in custody.

“We believe METPolice got the wrong guy and it happens because of lot of disinformation floating on web,” writes the LulzSecExposed blog on the subject. “LulzSec and Anonymous members are Master trolls and they are good at this… We have collected enough evidence on Topiary and everything points to 23 year old Swedish named Daniel Sandberg. The voice has been matched from his Swedish Anonymous interview to other interviews.”

New Scotland Yard has not released any further information regarding their previous announcement or the arrest.

Looking at the evidence and the mixed rumors it seems like we could be looking at a scenario where the police didn’t arrest the wrong hacker—if they do in fact not have the infamous Topiary in custody, they simply announced the arrest of the wrong hacker. Reports from the Metropolitan Police cite an intelligence investigation alongside cyber forensics units, which means that they tracked down the 19-year-old male not using information gathered from the net or dox from various hacker groups; but DDoS attack evidence that led them back to the hackers in question.