Cyberabad cops bust gang selling data of 17 cr citizens

The accused were selling the data through Justdial and similar platforms, Cyberabad Commissioner of Police Stephen Raveendra said

Cyberabad police on Thursday said they have busted a gang stealing and selling sensitive data pertaining to government organisations and personal details of 16.8 crore citizens.

Some of the accused have been arrested.

The gang was found to be selling about 140 categories of information including the details of defence personnel, mobile numbers of citizens and information about NEET students.

PAN card data, details regarding energy & power sector, gas & petroleum franchises, D-MAT accounts, databases of women including Bengaluru customers, data of people who applied for loans, insurance, credit and debit card holders (AXIS, HSBC banks etc) were also part of the data breach. WhatsApp-Facebook users, IT employees and frequent flyers were also targeted.

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The accused were selling the data through Justdial and similar platforms, Cyberabad Commissioner of Police Stephen Raveendra told reporters.

"This sensitive data can be used for unauthorised access to important organisations and institutions. The data of defence and government employees can be used for espionage, impersonation and to commit offences which may jeopardise national security. The data related to PAN cards can be used in economic offences," he said.

Modus operandi

When a person calls the toll-free numbers of Justdial for any sector-related data, their query is listed and sent to the particular category of service provider. Fraudsters then call the clients or send them samples. The data thus collected is used for committing crime, police said.

In the present case, the gang operated through three companies named Data Mart Infotech, Global Data Arts and MS Digital Grow.

The main accused Kumar Nitish Bhushan set up a call centre in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, and collected credit card databases from another accused, Muskan Hassan. Bhushan used Justdial and other social media platforms to resell the data to fraudsters. Another accused provided bulk messaging services for promotions and shared the database with Bhushan.

The second and third accused Kumari Pooja Pal and Susheel Thomar worked as telecaller and data entry operator in the call centre respectively. The fourth accused, Atul Pratap Singh, collected data of credit card holders and sold it for profit through his company "Inspiree Digital". Fifth accused Hassan, who previously worked as a telecaller at Atul's office, now runs a company "MS Digital Grow" and sells data as a mediator. Sandeep Pal is the sixth, who had set up Global Data Arts and used JustDial services and social media platforms to sell customers' confidential data to fraudsters who indulged in cyber offences. The seventh accused Zia Ur Rehman provides bulk messaging services for promotions and also shares the database with Singh and Bhushan.

Sensitive data of defence personnel containing their ranks, email ids, place of posting etc; information about government employees; names, addresses and phone numbers of NEET students; PAN card database with income details, phone numbers, addresses etc were found available with the accused. They also had databases of gas and petroleum companies.

The police further said in a statement that the mobile numbers of three crore individuals probably leaked from telecom service providers, were found with the accused. The cops seized 12 mobile phones, three laptops, two CPUs, mails and tax invoices of Justdial and data of 138 categories containing sensitive information.