The rates charged for the call details varied from Rs 5,000 to Rs 30,000. (Representational image)
Delhi Police on Sunday arrested four persons said to be members of an inter-state gang involved in illegally getting call detail records (CDRs) and then selling them to various people.
A Crime Branch official said private detective agencies procured the CDRs for their clients through one of the arrested person, Jaiveer Singh Rathore, who in turn got these records from Constable Narender posted in the Surveillance Cell at Inspector General of Police office in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
"Rathore charged money from these detective agencies and forwarded the targeted mobile phone numbers to Narender who procured the CDRs from various nodal agencies and passed them on to Rathore in return for money," the official said.
The rates charged for CDRs varied from Rs 5,000 to Rs 30,000 from people who approached private detective agencies for surveillance in matrimonial and financial disputes, love affairs, civil and legal cases, match-making and others.
"Jaiveer and other accused tried to procure CDRs from Delhi also, but found very strict procedures were in place. Hence, they started looking for sources outside Delhi," the official said.
Pankaj Tiwari, 26, who owned Scorpion Verification and Consultancy Pvt. Ltd., Aditya Sharma, 32, and Sanjeev Chaudhary, 42, of BLS Management Solution Pvt. Ltd. are the other three persons arrested in the case.
Several CDRs were allegedly seized from computers in BLS firm's office.
"Documents seized from the BLS company indicate rampant use of CDRs for spying on various targets. BLS officials Vinod Chaudhary, Sunil Pathak and company owners are on the run."
A few more arrests are likely to be made in the case, police said.