Ten arrested for selling pvt data
GHAZIABAD: The cybercrime unit of Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) on Friday arrested 10 brokers and call centre operators for allegedly selling personal data of consumers.
STF officials claimed that personal data of nearly 2 lakh customers may have been compromised from different renowned private and multinational e-commerce and finance companies.
The arrests came after nearly 30 multinational companies approached the STF with complaints of data breach.
The STF officials said that they have come across an entire chain leading to the data breaches. Under this, complete profiles of customers having insurance policies with companies were allegedly compromised.
The customers were contacted by the call centre operators and asked to pay ‘extra’ amount in certain bank accounts which were specially operated for the purpose. The customers were also lured with discounts of up to 60% on purchase of mobile phones through various e-commerce sites.
“We are investigating the case. During initial questioning, we have come to know that data breach was either done through hacking or in connivance with employees. The data was then shared with the broker, second in chain, who pocketed his share and provided these to call centres in Delhi, Faridabad and Noida. The 2 lakh customer profiles we seized are related to customers across NCR areas of Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad,” said Triveni Singh, additional superintendent of police (STF).
The police said that the accused operated call centres in areas of Janakpuri, Laxmi Nagar, Noida sector-1 and 2 and also at Faridabad. Nearly 70% of the accused who were nabbed had earlier worked with broker firms, insurance companies and later got engaged in selling profiles and duping customers by luring them with offers of extra bonus or extra returns on investment and insurance policies.
“The nexus of brokers operated bank accounts which were opened with fake KYC information is being probed. The bank accounts were specially offered by some people for the purpose of collecting ‘extra’ money from customers and were rented out on commission,” Singh added.