MUMBAI: Saurabh Sahu, the Delhi based mastermind of the Call Data Record (CDR) racket was arrested by the Thane police crime branch on Monday.
The crime branch had unearthed the racket earlier this year wherein details of several celebrities were found to have been compromised. Sahu was produced before the court which has granted police custody till June 29, police officials have said.
"Sahu is a habitual criminal. He had already been arrested in 2016 by Delhi police and in 2017 by the Mumbai police under similar offences and had even tied to seek anticipatory bail from a Delhi court," said Nitin Thakre, senior police inspector of the Thane crime branch who led the investigation.
The police had zeroed in on Sahu for a long time. Teams of Thane crime branch sent to Delhi to nab him had returned empty-handed at least four times as he had gone untraceable.
However, after filing an anticipatory bail application the police could locate him and as the court rejected the application, he was nabbed, the officer said. In January 2018, the Thane crime branch had trapped four detectives for illegally obtaining CDRs. The investigation revealed that confidential CDRs of over a 600 to 700 people have allegedly sold and bought by many people.
Several of these people were celebrities and hence several celebrities too had been called for an investigation in the case, latest of them is actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who was summoned by the Thane police last month.
The racket had also led to several arrests of police personnel, lawyers and private detectives including that of first women private detective of the country Rajani Pandit.
The Crime Branch has so far seized hundreds of CDRs from the arrested people. These CDRs were being analysed by experts with the assistance of the mobile service providers, the police said.
Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui's advocate held in Call Data Records case
Two more arrested in Thane call data records racket case
What goes around comes around: Actor Sahil Khan on CDR case involving Ayesha Shroff
Investigate before making assumptions: Kangana Ranaut on CDR scam
Out on bail, India’s first woman detective Rajani Pandit wants to clear her name