CDR racket busted; 4, including a cop, held

With the arrest of four persons, including a police official from Jaipur, the Delhi police claimed to have busted another call details record (CDR) racket operating across several cities on Tuesday.

Earlier this month, the Delhi police had busted a CDR racket with the arrest of five, including a UP police constable and a man who was earlier involved in another similar racket which had allegedly tried to snoop on Union finance minister Arun Jaitley.

The latest arrests were made over the past three days, following raids in cities, including Mumbai, Pune and Jaipur, on the basis of a complaint by a Delhi resident whom the accused had approached and provided him with his son’s CDR in exchange of '8,000, joint commissioner of police (crime) Ravindra Yadav said.

The accused have been identified as Aniket Prakash Dhamle (25), who claims to be an ethical hacker by profession and has his own detective agency in Pune; Abhinav Kumar (35), who heads a detective agency in Mumbai; Gajraj Singh (23), a cyber expert who was helping Jaipur Police for the past two years; and Mukesh Kumar Meena (38), a sub-inspector in the cyber cell of the Jaipur police whose promotion was due next month, the police said.

Mr Meena sent over 2,000 CDRs to Gajraj Singh through official links under the National Informatics Centre (NIC) domain for around Rs 1,500 each, which Mr Singh used to resend to the detective agencies for anything around Rs 3,500. The detective agencies used to sell the same to their clients charging between Rs 5,000- Rs 12,000, the police said.

The agencies associated with the racket catered to clients who sought CDRs for clues in matrimonial disputes, love affairs, civil disputes and match-making.