Data theft case: Cyberabad police forms special teams to nab suspects

The Cyberabad police have formed special teams to nab two suspects who allegedly helped Vinay Bhardwaj in obtaining data of around 66.90 crore individuals across the country

Hyderabad: The Cyberabad police have formed special teams to nab two suspects who allegedly helped Vinay Bhardwaj in obtaining data of around 66.90 crore individuals across the country.

The two persons, Amer Sohail and Madan Gopal, had allegedly provided the voluminous data to Vinay Bhardwaj who was selling it through his website ‘inspirewebz’. Bhardwaj was arrested by the Cyberabad police on Saturday.

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“Preliminary investigation revealed Bhardwaj collected money through online modes and supplied data to his clients. He told us that a major portion of the data was sourced from Amer and Gopal, both of whom are absconding. Our teams are making efforts to nab them,” said a senior official of Cyberabad police.

The police found Bhardwaj was selling the data for a price between Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 5,000. “As of now, we are checking the laptops seized from him to know about his clients. We suspect the data was sold to fraudsters as well who might have used it to dupe the citizens,” said the official.

The police suspect some more persons might have helped Bhardwaj in segregation of the voluminous data and efforts are on to identify and them as well.

Meanwhile, the SIT of Cyberabad police formed to probe into the data theft case busted last month issued notices to companies and organizations through which the data was sourced illegally.

These notices were issued to Big Basket, Phonepe, Facebook, Club Mahendra, Policy Bazaar, Axis Bank, Astute Group, Matrix, Bank of Baroda, State Bank of India and Tech Mahindra.

The Cyberabad police have found such data sale gangs are operating from call centres and offices set up in New Delhi. A majority of the business is taking place through online mode with little physical interaction between the seller and buyers. Online advertisement and business portals are used by the gangs to carry out their illegal business.