HYDERABAD: The Cyberabad police on Thursday arrested a gang of seven members in Noida who were said to be involved in data theft and selling confidential information. Cyberabad Commissioner of Police Stephen Ravindra, in a press conference held on Thursday, revealed the details of the case stating that the accused were stealing and selling the data of 16.8 crore people under 140 categories, including the data of officers working in various positions in the Defense Department, NEET students, Demat account holders, Employees of IT companies, WhatsApp, Facebook users, Telecom, Pharma companies, CBSE class 12 students. There is a possibility of a national threat as data of 2.55 lakh people belonging to the Defense Department (Defense Force Delhi NCR Database) was also stolen.

The accused were operating through call centers named Data Mart Infotech, Global Data Arts, and MS Digital Grow located in Noida. They were identified as Nitish Bhushan, Kumari Pooja, Sushil Tomar, Atul Singh, Muskan Hasan, Sandeep Paul, and Zia Ur Rahman. The police seized 12 cell phones, 3 laptops, 2 CPUs, and data documents, an LED projector, checkbooks, debit cards, and SIM cards from the accused.

The cybercriminals sold the stolen data to almost 100 people at Rs. 2000. The data consists of 1.47 crore car owners, 3.47 crore domain voice databases, 3 crore mobile numbers from the database, 2 crore student databases, and 1.2 crore WhatsApp users names, 40 lakh job seekers database, 12 lakhs CBSE class 12th students, 2.3 lakh civil engineers, 8.1 lakh debit cards, 10.6 lakh senior citizens, 17.4 lakh website owners and working professionals were stolen, police said. A Special Investigation Team, (SIT) was constituted under the leadership of DCP Kalmeshwar to investigate this case.