2 Thane cops arrested for selling CDRs to pvt detective agencies

Thane: The Thane Crime Branch Unit-1 arrested two police constables from the cyber crime cell and a history-sheeter for allegedly extracting and selling sensitive call records illegally to private detective agencies.The police stated that phone service providers typically release Call Detail Records (CDRs) to the police for investigation purposes only upon receiving written requests authorised by high-ranking officials.The arrested constables, identified as Akash Surve and Harshad Parab from Thane's cyber police station, allegedly collaborated with alleged criminals Sohel Mohammed Rajput and Salik Mohammed Rajput in this operation. This operation started in 2022 and continued for a couple of months without senior officials' knowledge. Police officers confirmed that Salik Rajput is yet to be arrested. According to the FIR, the constables misused govt email IDs to obtain CDRs and Subscriber Detail Records (SDRs) from telecommunication service providers without proper authorisation. They allegedly charged Rs 15,000 for one month's CDRs, Rs 25,000 for three months' CDRs, and Rs 1,000 for a one-time location tracking.Investigators discovered money transfers from Rajput's bank account to the accused officers and their relatives. Constable Surve also allegedly provided Rajput access to an application channel normally reserved exclusively for investigating agencies. The operation allegedly worked with Sohel Rajput passing the illegally obtained data to his brother Salik, who then sold it to private detective agencies at premium rates. — Nishikant Karlikar