HYDERABAD: The data theft case is getting bigger as Cyberabad police found that the data of 66.9 crore individuals across 44 categories in eight metro cities and 24 States, including 56 lakh people in Hyderabad, was stolen. This came to light following the arrest of a man, Vinay Bharadwaj, from Faridabad in Haryana. Earlier, it was thought that the data of 16.8 crore people including those from armed forces was stolen. Those who were targeted by the data thieves included the users of streaming platforms, payment applications, social media, students and high net worth individuals, etc.
Grilling of the five offenders arrested in the data theft of 16.8 crore people and simultaneous investigation by the Cybercrime wing, led to the arrest of Vinay Bharadwaj. According to the police, Vinay had set up an office in Faridabad to procure the data from two of the accused and sold it on social media to fraudsters for monetary gain. He was found possessing the data of students from educational platforms like Byju’s and Vedanta, 1.84 lakh cab users in eight metro cities and 4.5 lakh salaried employees of six cities and Gujarat state.
According to the police, the accused was found selling personal and confidential data of about 66.9 crore individuals and organisations in 104 categories. This included the data of 51.9 crore individuals and organisations in 24 states and eight cities in 44 categories. He was also found to be in possession of data of defence personnel, government employees, PAN card holders, students of Classes 9, 10, 11 and 12, senior citizens, Delhi electricity consumers, Demat account holders, mobile numbers of various individuals, NEET students, high net worth individuals, insurance holders, credit card and debit card holders. The police seized two mobile phones and two laptops from the accused and sent them for further assessment by Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). The data of three crore mobile phone users, 98 lakh credit card holders, 15 lakh IT professionals and 1.2 lakh NRIs was also found to be compromised.
Bharadwaj who operated two call centres was stealing information from major categories like banks, insurance and financial services, doctors, software engineers, Truecaller, telecom data, trading and stockbroking, consulting services of crores of individuals, Just Dial and other portals. Further, the data of car owners, job aspirants, real estate businessmen, frequent air travellers, NRIs was traced in his laptop.