A police sub-inspector in Jaipur was arrested for supplying the CDRs to Sahu, who was then arrested, but later got out on bail, only to become a wanted man again.
Mumbai police had last year cracked down on a gang of detectives who were procuring call detail records illegally. Incidentally, two key sets of players from that case find a feature role in the racket busted in Thane recently. These are: the clients and two of the men at the centre of the racket.
The city cops enumerated the kinds of clients that approached the detectives arrested in last year’s case, and the client base matches that in the Thane case: parents who want to know the company their kids keep, collegians worried about the loyalty of their partner, suspicious spouses wary of extramarital affairs, and corporate recruiters running ‘background checks’ for high-stakes appointments.
“A large number of people who approached the detectives were worried parents wanting to know if their children are abusing substances, if they are bunking, who they are meeting,” said Mahesh Desai, police inspector, Bandra Crime Branch, who was working on the case.
Two more points of convergence in the two cases are found in the accused persons of Kirtesh Kavi, who has been arrested for the recent episode, and Delhi-based mastermind Saurabh Sahu, wanted in the ongoing investigations by the Thane police.
In last year’s case, Sahu had been procuring CDRs for Kavi using his police contacts.
A police sub-inspector in Jaipur was arrested for supplying the CDRs to Sahu, who was then arrested, but later got out on bail, only to become a wanted man again.
A curious differentiator, though, is how the accused detectives in last year’s case foxed their clients by telling them they were shadowing the “targets” they were supposed to gather dope on, when they were merely tracking their phone locations or bending the rules to obtain their call detail records, the police said.
The detectives would charge Rs 50,000 to take up the case, saying a lot of legwork was involved. But the dossier they would compile on the target’s movement — where they go, how much time they spend there, when they return — would entirely come from the CDRs and tower locations of their cellphones procured for about Rs 12,000. In some cases, the clients had paid as much as Rs 5 lakh, said Desai.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "detectives_THINKSTOCK")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}