- March 24, 2023
7 held for stealing & selling personal data of 17 crore Indians | India News – Times of India
HYDERABAD: Telangana’s Cyberabad police busted Thursday a seven-member gang of cybercriminals that was stealing and selling sensitive personal and financial information of 16. 8 crore Indians over the past two years through Justdial and other such service providers.
The leak data included those of CEOs, government officials and defence personnel, which the police said posed a threat of “espionage” and “jeopardised national security”.
In a separate but similar case, Cyberabad police arrested nine people in Delhi and its surrounding areas for stealing credit card details of customers of State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda.
The gang of seven was picked up in and around Delhi too — their base since they started the data theft in 2021. The data ranged from names, addresses and phone numbers to PAN card and bank details (debit/credit card numbers) of people, with information on monthly income, loans and insurance in some cases. The data included information on NEET aspirants too.
Cyberabad police commissioner Stephen Raveendra said the arrested gang members — Kumar Nitish Bhushan, Kumari Pooja Pal, Susheel Thomar, Atul Pratap Singh, Muskan Hassan, Sandeep Pal and Zia-ur-Rehman — were brought to Hyderabad Thursday and sent to judicial custody.
The crackdown followed a complaint by a man in Hyderabad two months ago, who sought to know how confidential data about him was available in public domain. “We started the probe and found that the accused were in possession of a repository of information about citizens from across the country,” said Raveendra.
“Data on defence and government employees, in particular, can be used for impersonation and committing serious offences. Details of PAN cards can lead to more cyber frauds,” he said.
Police found that the gang was selling the stolen data through three unregistered companies — Data Mart Infotech, Global Data Arts and MS Digital Grow — at Rs 2,000 for 50,000 profiles, netting a profit of Rs 6 lakh every month.
“For a certain price, Justdial provided contact details of the concerned data agent (the accused in this case) to the caller. At first, the agent shared a data sample with the caller and if the buyer was satisfied, the full data was provided,” Raveendra said. Police will seek an explanation from Justdial.
Raveendra said the source of the data is still not known. Data of 3 crore individuals was probably illegally accessed from telecom service providers, he said.
The leak data included those of CEOs, government officials and defence personnel, which the police said posed a threat of “espionage” and “jeopardised national security”.
In a separate but similar case, Cyberabad police arrested nine people in Delhi and its surrounding areas for stealing credit card details of customers of State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda.
The gang of seven was picked up in and around Delhi too — their base since they started the data theft in 2021. The data ranged from names, addresses and phone numbers to PAN card and bank details (debit/credit card numbers) of people, with information on monthly income, loans and insurance in some cases. The data included information on NEET aspirants too.
Cyberabad police commissioner Stephen Raveendra said the arrested gang members — Kumar Nitish Bhushan, Kumari Pooja Pal, Susheel Thomar, Atul Pratap Singh, Muskan Hassan, Sandeep Pal and Zia-ur-Rehman — were brought to Hyderabad Thursday and sent to judicial custody.
The crackdown followed a complaint by a man in Hyderabad two months ago, who sought to know how confidential data about him was available in public domain. “We started the probe and found that the accused were in possession of a repository of information about citizens from across the country,” said Raveendra.
“Data on defence and government employees, in particular, can be used for impersonation and committing serious offences. Details of PAN cards can lead to more cyber frauds,” he said.
Police found that the gang was selling the stolen data through three unregistered companies — Data Mart Infotech, Global Data Arts and MS Digital Grow — at Rs 2,000 for 50,000 profiles, netting a profit of Rs 6 lakh every month.
“For a certain price, Justdial provided contact details of the concerned data agent (the accused in this case) to the caller. At first, the agent shared a data sample with the caller and if the buyer was satisfied, the full data was provided,” Raveendra said. Police will seek an explanation from Justdial.
Raveendra said the source of the data is still not known. Data of 3 crore individuals was probably illegally accessed from telecom service providers, he said.
