The Hindu : New Delhi News : Call centre staff held for data theft

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 13, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Call centre staff held for data theft

Staff Reporter

Allegedly sold the same to clients in the U.S.

NEW DELHI: Four employees of a call centre who had allegedly stolen the data from the company they were employed in and then sold the same to clients in the United States through a parallel company have been arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi police.

According to the police, M/S Parsec Technologies Limited (PTL) in Anand Vihar had lodged a complaint with the Intellectual Property Rights Section of the EOW saying that the company had suffered losses to the tune of Rs. 3 crores from the month of June to September 2004 due to leakage of data.

Investigations revealed that one of the computers in the company were used to transfer the data to one M/S Telequest Systems. One of the partners of this company was Biplab Saha, who had been working with M/S PTL since November 2001 as senior programme manager and was the team leader for data management. He had left the company a few months before the loss was discovered and an internal inquiry ordered by the company.

The police arrested Biplab from Gurgaon. At his instance, three more persons -- Abdullah Aziz, Sandeep Sharma and Ritesh Srivastava -- were arrested at various places in Gurgaon, Faridabad and Delhi.

During interrogation, the accused allegedly confessed their involvement in the data theft. The police said PTL used to get data from its US counterpart M/S Parsec Technologies Incorporated (PTI). PTI, in turn, was getting the data from M/S Mortgage Originators, an US firm dealing housing loans. The data, which contained the particulars of several thousand people who could be prospective buyers of a house, received by M/S PTL was sent to various call centres that were supposed to "scrub" the list. This meant short-listing names of only those who were really interested in any deal. The "scrubbed" list was then sent back to M/S PTI and ultimately to Mortgage Originators.

The police said P.K. Saha, father of Biplab, had opened the company, M/S Telequest System, in January 2004. They wanted to increase their clientele and roped in Abdullah, who was also an employee of the PTL. He helped Biplab in coordinating with various call centres on behalf of M/S Telequest.

Biplab was further assisted by Sandeep, who installed particular software on his Biplab's computer that helped him pass on the data -- received by the PTL -- to various call centres on behalf of M/S Telequest. Ritesh, an employee of M/S PTI in the US to help him increase his clientele base there.

The police said apart from Biplab, Ritesh too had left the company and the two were together running a company in the name of M/S Protel Infoserve at JMD Towers in Gurgaon. They claimed to be the representatives of M/S Leadpointer of the US, apparently a sister concern of M/S Mortgage Pointers -- the company to whom the stolen data was initially sold.

During the period when the data was stolen, the company suffered a total loss of Rs. 3.3 crores. Further investigations in the case are on.

Statement from Parsec Technologies

New Delhi, August 19, 2009: Gurgaon headquartered BPO company, Parsec Technologies Limited, and its ex-employees have amicably settled the data theft case being investigated by the Delhi Police since 2005.

The Delhi High Court passed an order quashing the FIR dating back to July 2005, based on a memorandum of understanding signed between Parsec Technologies Limited and Biplab Saha and others. As per the understanding, Biplab Saha withdrew the Civil Suit filed by him against Parsec and the company agreed to withdraw the complaint against him and the other accused in the FIR.

Both parties had worked over the last few months to clear the air and mutually agreed to bury the issue. The memorandum of understanding was signed in February this year.

The company had suspected data theft when there was a sudden drop in productivity of call centres associated with Parsec Technologies Limited and had filed a complaint with the Delhi Police.

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