Data theft of 66.9 crore people, 24 states and 8 metros of the country bid in 104 categories

The Cyberabad Police of Telangana's capital Hyderabad has unearthed a massive data theft network. Cyberabad police on Saturday said that it has arrested the accused Vinay Bhardwaj. The allegation has targeted 66.9 crore individuals across 24 states and eight metros in the country. He was involved in stealing, possessing and selling personal and confidential data of organizations. Police seized two mobile phones and two laptops and 104 categories of data containing sensitive information of government, private organizations and individuals.

He is stealing, buying, holding and selling data of 1.84 lakh cab users from eight metro cities and 4.5 lakh salaried employees of six cities and Gujarat state as well as personal and confidential data of students, officials said.

A police press release said that accused Vinay Bhardwaj has data of students of edutech organizations and also consumer customer data of major organizations like GST, road transport organizations of various states, and leading eco-commerce portals. Social media platforms and fintech companies, the accused arrested on Friday, were found selling personal and confidential data of around 669 million individuals and organizations placed in 104 categories.

According to the police, the accused Vinay Bhardwaj had set up an office in Faridabad and collected the database from his associates, Aamer, Sohail and Madan Gopal. He used to promote social media platforms to resell the data to fraudsters for profit. It includes data on students in Byjus and Vedantu, 519 million individuals and organizations across 24 states and eight cities, grouped into 44 categories.

Cyberabad commissioner Stephen Ravindra said some of the important data in possession of the accused included data of defence personnel, government employees, PAN card holders, students of classes IX to XII, senior citizens, Delhi electricity consumers, demat account holders, mobile numbers of various individuals. numbers, data of NEET students are included. Apart from this, high-net-worth individuals, insurance holders, and credit card and debit card holders have also been targeted.

Apart from this, they also have consumer/customer data of major organizations like GST (Pan India), RTO (Pan India), Amazon, Netflix, Youtube, Paytm, Phonepe, Big Basket, BookMyShow, Instagram, Zomato, Policybazaar and Upstox.