Cybercrooks bank on gangs selling personal data

Police bust at least four gangs involved in selling data that was used to cheat gullible persons

Hyderabad: Evidence of criminals misusing the personal data of citizens obtained through illegal channels including online portals, keeps mounting. The police in the tri-commissionerates of Hyderabad, Cyberabad, and Rachakonda in recent weeks have arrested at least four gangs involved in selling data that was used to cheat gullible persons. A few offenders who used such data to dupe people were also arrested for different cybercrime-related offences. In the latest case, Gandagori Chakradhar Goud, the alleged conman arrested by the Hyderabad Police for cheating unemployed youth, allegedly obtained the personal data of 10,000 persons from a web portal by paying Rs 30,000. Using the data, tele-callers proficient in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam languages called up the victims using fraudulently obtained phones and SIM cards.

“Using the personal data like name, contact number, residential address, email, etc., the tele-callers offered the victims a ‘home-based job’ with a salary of Rs 26,000 per month,” said an official of Hyderabad Commissioner’s Task Force. For the task, these tele-callers from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, were paid a salary between Rs 20,000-25,000,” said the official.

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Chakradhar Goud, it is alleged, asked his employees not to target the youth from Telangana as he feared the local victims would lodge complaints and he would be arrested. Initially, the tele-callers handed over some data entry tasks to the victims as a preliminary test and later informed them that their work met the company standards and thus they were selected.

“The victims were asked to deposit Rs 2,600 i.e., 10 percent of their monthly salary assured to them. When the amount was transferred, they would try to extort another Rs 3,000 on some pretext or other or else, would block the phone number of the victim,” the official said. The gang had procured the SIM cards from Krishna Murthy of Dharmavaram in Andhra Pradesh for Rs 1,000 each. “The SIM cards were obtained by cheating poor women in villages and were linked to Airtel Money Wallet. The money thus transferred by the victims to the wallet would be later transferred to fuel stations through e-wallets and exchanged for cash by paying 3 per cent commission to the cashiers,” said the official