Temporary DoT Pune employee arrested for selling sensitive private data of citizens

The lid on the scam was blown with the arrest of two brothers Rahul, 28, and Nikhil Eligati, 25, in the last week of November. The brother had created websites that provided private data of those living in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Delhi. This data included a person’s Aadhaar card number, address, date of birth, and mobile numbers of relatives. It was sold mainly to loan recovery agents at a monthly subscription of Rs 2000, a half-year subscription of Rs 12000 or an annual subscription of Rs 24000.

During the investigation, other than the two brothers, four more people, including one from Telangana, were arrested by the police. The sixth person to be arrested, identified as Sandeep Palande, was a manager with Airtel in charge of compliance with DoT, said a Crime Branch officer.

As per DoT rules, all mobile service providers must update all new and cancelled connections each month with DoT during the first ten days. “Along with the numbers activated, the service providers also must provide documents submitted by customers including their Aadhar, alternate number, address, date of birth and other details. The DoT gets this data on a CD which it then stores on its database,” the officer said.

The person on the desk in Pune responsible for this was Sujit Nangre, a temporary employee who according to the police earns around Rs 25000. An officer said Palande knew Nangre as the former was responsible for data compliance for Airtel. “Palande was aware of the demand for private data of people for loan recovery agencies. He knew Nangre had access to the data of all service providers. On nearly four occasions, he purchased data for nearly Rs 50000 and sold it for Rs seven to eight lakh, the officer added. We do not think Nangre was aware what this would be used for,” the officer added.

From Palande, this data went to one Ishtiaq and the other accused before it reached the two brothers. The brothers, like some loan recovery agencies, used this data and made use of other data like online telephone directories. They then got software made which would club people living at the same address and they had a database of all family members, their addresses, and other details which were used to track down people to collect loan amounts.

An officer said they would be calling officials from DoT and Airtel to understand their security systems. “In this case, trusting a temporary employee with such sensitive data of citizens was not a wise idea. We will also be talking to Airtel about their security measures,” the officer said. “This is sensitive data and could be used by cyber criminals and other anti-social elements for nefarious purposes. In the wrong hands, such rich data could be dangerous,” the officer added.