16 crore citizens’ data up for sale
PNS|Hyderabad
A gang who eyed the confidential data of 16.8 crore citizens and the government for selling has been arrested by the Cyberabad Police.
The fraudsters are involved in stealing and selling of data on defence personnel, mobile phone numbers of citizens, NEET students, the database on women, government employees, loan applicants, insurance, credit and debit cards, all via Just Dial.
Cyberabad Police Commissioner Stephen Raveendra said the suspects were found selling the database of WhatsApp and Facebook users, IT employees, PAN card, energy sector etc.
The data on defence and government employees can be used for espionage and to impersonate. The data on PAN card can be used to commit serious offences, added Stephen.
Data on 1.20 crore WhatsApp users was found while information including age, email ID, and the phone number of 17 lakh Facebook users was also seized from the suspects who operated through registered and unregistered companies of Data Mart Infotech, Global Data Arts and MS Digital Grow.
The police said that the mobile phone number database of 3 crore individuals was leaked from telecom service providers.
Data of customers from financial institutions like Axis Bank, HSBC etc about credit card and debit cards containing information on account details was also found.
The arrested suspects are Kumar Nitish Bhushan who established a call centre at Noida and collected credit card databases, Pooja Pal a tele-caller, Susheel Thomar, a data entry operator, Atul Pratap Singh, who collected data on credit card holders and sold it, Muskan Hassan who sold data, Sandeep Pal who established the Global Data Arts and sold customers’ confidential data to fraudsters and Zia Ur Rehman who provided bulk messaging services.
Cops bust gang stealing bank data
The Cyberabad Police busted a gang involved in stealing confidential bank data and cheating credit card holders. This gang was operating from Delhi, collecting confidential credit card customer data from banks. The gang used to get it either from executives working for banks or from employees working in companies to whom banks had outsourced the work of field verification of customers who were applying for credit cards or outsourced customer care work. Using this data, the fraudsters used to contact cardholders pretending to be customer care executives of banks and cheat them by asking for money for activating cards, renewal, redeem card points etc. They use No Broker.com, Magicbricks.com, and Housing.com sites to transfer money from credit cards to mule bank accounts.
The police registered a case under Cr. No.237/2023 U/s 419, 420, 120 (B) IPC & Sec. 43, 66, 66-B, 66-C, & 66-D of IT Act registered at Cyber Crime P.S Cyberabad.
The arrested gang was found to have collected the credit card data of Bank of Baroda and SBI from executives and associates working for the bank and from open sources on the Internet.
The main accused established a call centre in Delhi and his associates A2 to A4 duped credit card holders posing as bank executives by demanding money for card activation and for transfers of cheated amounts to mule accounts through No-broker, Magic Bricks, and Housing.com platforms.
From the platforms, money will be routed to mule bank accounts acquired by A1 from A7.
The accused are Kafil Ahmed, Mohd Jamal, Mohd Asif, Chirag, Virendra Singh, Pradeep Walia Akash Nirwan, Vikas Puri, and Ateet Das. The gang also includes customer care executives of banks and those working as outsourced clients of banks.
