Delhi Police has busted a big snooping racket involving several private detective agencies and arrested four persons for allegedly selling call detail records (CDRs) of thousands of people collected through the help of a UP Police constable based in Kanpur.
Senior police officers said the gang is suspected to have procured and supplied thousands of sensitive CDRs and sold to clients seeking to snoop in matrimonial matters, legal disputes, business rivalries, financial enquiries as well as talks between high profile persons including politicians and top bureaucrats.
A team of Crime Branch of Delhi Police was working on the information about illegal sale of CDRs through private detective agencies and caught the accused Pankaj Tiwari, from his office selling CDR red handed through a decoy on July 4, said Ravindra Yadav, Joint Commissioner(Crime) of Police.
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Tiwari obtained CDRs through a man Jaiveer Singh who claimed to be owner of a TV channel who has also been arrested. Jaivir revealed that he procured the CDRs from a UP Police constable Narendra Kumar posted with the Surveillance Cell of IG Kanpur in UP.
Delhi Police has got the custody of Kumar an accused in the snooping case from Kanpur police, the officer said.
Other arrested include Aditya Sharma and Sanjiv Chaudhary. Aditya was earlier arrested by Delhi Police for selling CDRs of high profile persons in 2013.
Sanjiv worked with a private company which allegedly sold CDRs to its clients and private detective agencies charging them Rs 5,000 to Rs 30,000, said the officer.
Police said that Sanjeev Choudhary, who worked as sales
manager with a private limited company was in a regular touch with Jaiveer and Aditya.
According to police, more people including the owner of company will soon be arrested. Vinod Choudhary and Sunil Pathak, who also worked with Choudhary, will be arrested soon.
"Choudhary was assigned the tasks of procurement of CDR's through illegal means," official said, adding that role of several other detective agencies and nodal agencies is also being investigated.
A senior police official said that an information was received in the office of Central Range of Delhi Police that one Pankaj Tiwari is allegedly indulging in procuring and selling CDR's to his clients.
A decoy customer approached the office of Pankaj Tiwari and asked him to produce a sample CDR before settling a deal with him. Tiwari, after charging an initial part amount of Rs 5000 from the decoy, produced an already procured CDR and after verifying its genuineness. He was then apprehended.
On sustained interrogation, Tiwari stated that he used to purchase these CDR's from Jaiveer Singh Rathore who is running a detective agency.
"A trap was laid and Jaiveer Singh was also apprehended. Jaiveer Singh, when interrogated, revealed that he knows Narendra.
"Jaiveer Singh used to collect orders of CDR's from various detective agencies for amounts ranging between Rs 5000 to Rs 30,000 depending upon the quantity/period of CDR procured and after paying to Narender per CDR, Jaiveer used to provide them to these detective agencies," the official said.
