Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) has arrested five people from different parts of the country for allegedly selling citizens’ personal information online after obtaining it from government servers.
The arrestees are Abdus Salam Sarkar of Naogaon, Subrata Chandra Pal of Gazipur, Ismail Hossain Sohag of Noakhali, SM Nafi of Gopalganj, and Mehedi Hasan of Keraniganj in Dhaka, Rab-2 Commander Additional DIG Naimul Hasan said during a press conference at his office today.
He said the force was preparing a list of people involved in selling the information and would arrest them gradually.
The arrests followed recent media reports on the online sale of citizens’ confidential data.
According to Rab, Abdus Salam launched an encrypted website, “E Seba 24 Dot Top”, in April to commercialise citizens’ personal data. The website allowed clients to place orders and purchase confidential files in exchange for money.
Salam had previously worked temporarily at the Election Commission office between 2018 and 2022, Rab said.
With the help of his associates, Salam allegedly traded classified records through various social media groups. The compromised information included National Identity Card (NID) and birth registration records, call detail records (CDRs), mobile banking registration and transaction logs, SIM ownership profiles, IMEI search data, radio-location data, and the last known locations of mobile SIM cards.
Rab said the other four suspects ran promotional campaigns on Facebook and took orders through WhatsApp. They allegedly routed illicit financial transactions through mobile banking accounts and SIM cards registered under different names and identities.
“They were providing customers with accurate information in exchange for money, as they were collecting the information from government servers,” the Rab-2 commander said.
He declined to disclose the names of those responsible for leaking data from state servers for cash, saying the operation was still underway.
Highlighting the procedural hurdles faced even by state agencies in accessing such information, Additional DIG Naimul Hasan said law enforcers cannot obtain surveillance data casually.
“Whenever an incident occurs, such as a vehicle being lost or a mobile phone being stolen, it is difficult to obtain the last-location information from law enforcement agencies,” he said.
“We have to go through a process. We cannot obtain CDRs without a case. The information we receive is used exclusively for government purposes. The general public is getting the information, which means someone is working with it. An investigation is underway to find out who is involved,” he added.
The Rab official further said they had so far found no involvement of any law enforcement personnel in the data leak.
