In a major breakthrough, the Crime Branch of Delhi Police on Tuesday claimed it has busted a pan-India call detail recording (CDRs) racket with the arrest of four persons, including a police officer of the Jaipur cyber crime cell.
The CDR racket is the second one after police busted an inter-state racket on July 10.
On Tuesday, police said it has arrested four persons, including two owners of detective agencies, one police official and one expert hacker, who used to work with the Jaipur police.
The four were identified as Aniket Prakash Dhamle aka Harish Naidu, 25, a resident of Pune in Maharashtra, and Abhinav Kumar, 35, a resident of Mumbai in Maharashtra, -- both ran detective agencies; Gajraj Singh, 23, a student and hacker, and a police officer of the Jaipur Police cyber crime cell, Mukesh Kumar Meena, 38.
According to police, Meena had supplied the detective agency owners with over 2,000 CDRs in the last two years.
The case came to light when a complainant approached Delhi Police alleging Aniket Dhamle was illegally procuring CDRs of people.
Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Ravindra Yadav told reporters, "Aniket used to run a detective agency named 'Chercheur Detective and Investigator' in Maharashtra's Pune city. He used to send bulk messages to people offering CDRs, and once they agreed, they were charged exorbitantly."
Aniket would approach Abhinav with requests for CDRs of particular persons, after which the latter would approach Gajraj, who in turn would ask Meena, a sub-inspector, to arrange for it.
"Meena used to sell the CDRs to Gajraj for Rs 1,500 to 1,600 per CDR. Gajraj sold those to Abhinav for Rs 3,000, which was then again sold by Abhinav to Aniket for Rs 4,500," Yadav said.
"Aniket then sold these to his clients for Rs 8,000," Yadav added.
Yadav said that Aniket and Gajraj are ethical hackers. "Both have learnt hacking, and Gajraj had been assisting the police officials of Jaipur Police's Cyber Cell since 2013," he said.
"Abhinav too ran his own detective agency in Mumbai named Spymantra Detective and Investigation," the officer said.
Aniket was arrested on July 15 from Pune, while Abhinav and Gajraj were arrested on July 16 from Mumbai and Jaipur. M.K. Meena was arrested by sleuths on July 17, the officer said.
The police has recovered four mobile phones, five laptops, one desktop, and several ATM and bank accounts.
Yadav said that several detective agencies across the country are brazenly attempting to get CDR details unauthorisedly to earn money.
The Delhi Police had on July 10 cracked an inter-state gang involved in illegally getting CDRs and then selling them to various people, mainly detective agencies. Five persons -- an Uttar Pradesh police constable Narender, Jaiveer Singh Rathore, 46, Pankaj Tiwari, 26, Aditya Sharma, 32, and Sanjeev Chaudhary, 42 -- were arrested for illegally obtaining CDRs.
--IANS
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