Cyberabad Police arrest gang for selling personal data of 16.8 crore citizens

The investigators suspect the mobile number database of 3 crore individuals was leaked from telecom service providers and which could be used for committing various crimes

Hyderabad: In a major crackdown against data theft, the Cyberabad Police arrested a gang that was involved in committing theft, procuring and selling of sensitive and confidential data of government and important organisations, apart from personal and confidential data of 16.8 crore citizens.

According to Cyberabad police, the suspects were found selling information under more than 140 different categories including details of defence personnel, mobile numbers of citizens, database of students, women and government employees, applicants of loans, insurance, credit or debit card.

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The gang was also selling database of WhatsApp and Facebook users, IT employees, PAN Card, energy and power sector etc, said Cyberabad Police Commissioner, Stephen Raveendra on Thursday. Data related to 1.20 crore WhatsApp users was found while information including age, email id, phone number of 17 lakh Facebook users was also unearthed from the suspects who allegedly operated through registered and unregistered three companies – Data Mart Infotech, Global Data Arts and MS Digital Grow.

The investigators suspect the mobile number database of 3 crore individuals was leaked from telecom service providers and which could be used for committing various crimes. Further, credit card and debit cards data of reputed financial institutions was found in possession of the suspects.

Stephen Raveendra said data pertaining to defence and government employees could be used for espionage, impersonation and for serious offences that could jeopardize the national security. “The data related to PAN card is being used to commit large number of cybercrimes by gaining confidence with victim by disclosing the information,” he said.

The arrested suspects included Kumar Nitish Bhushan who established a call centre in Noida, Uttar Pradesh and collected credit card databases, Pooja Pal a tele-caller, Susheel Thomar, a data entry operator, Atul Pratap Singh who collected data of credit card holders and sold it, Muskan Hassan who sold data as a mediator, Sandeep Pal who established Global Data Arts and sold customers confidential data to fraudsters who indulge in cyber offences and Zia Ur Rehman who provided bulk messaging services for promotions and also shared the data base.