Two senior officers working for anti-terror police in Bangladesh allegedly collected and offered categorized and private data of residents to criminals on Telegram, TechCrunch has discovered.
The info allegedly offered included nationwide id particulars of residents, mobile phone name data and different “categorized secret data,” in line with a letter signed by a senior Bangladeshi intelligence official, seen by TechCrunch.
The letter, dated April 28, was written by Brigadier Common Mohammad Baker, who serves as a director of Bangladesh’s Nationwide Telecommunications Monitoring Heart, or NTMC, the nation’s digital eavesdropping company. Baker confirmed the legitimacy of the letter and its contents in an interview with TechCrunch.
“Departmental investigation is ongoing for each the circumstances,” Baker stated in an internet chat, including that the Bangladeshi Ministry of Residence Affairs ordered the affected police organizations to take “obligatory motion in opposition to these officers.”
The letter, which was initially written in Bengali and addressed to the senior secretary of the Ministry of Residence Affairs Public Safety Division, alleges the 2 police brokers accessed and handed “extraordinarily delicate data” of personal residents on Telegram in change for cash.
Based on the letter, the police brokers had been caught after investigators analyzed logs of the NTMC’s techniques and the way usually the 2 accessed it.
The letter reveals the id of the officers. One of many accused is a police superintendent serving with the Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU). The opposite is an assistant police superintendent deputy on the Speedy Motion Battalion, often known as RAB 6, a controversial paramilitary unit that the U.S. authorities sanctioned in 2021 over allegations that the unit is linked to a whole lot of disappearances and extrajudicial killings. TechCrunch isn’t naming the 2 individuals who had been accused because it’s unclear if they’ve been charged below the nation’s authorized system.
The NTMC is a authorities intelligence company established below Bangladesh’s Ministry of Residence Affairs. The company’s core process is to observe all telecommunications site visitors and intercept telephone and internet communications to detect and forestall threats to nationwide safety.
Organizations like Human Rights Watch and Freedom Home have criticized the NTMC for missing safeguards in opposition to abuses, each in opposition to free speech in addition to privateness. Through the years, NTMC procured subtle expertise from corporations in Israel, which Bangladesh doesn’t formally acknowledge, in addition to different Western international locations, to conduct mass surveillance largely on opposition occasion members, journalists, civil society members and activists.
As a part of its mission, the NTMC runs the Nationwide Intelligence Platform, or NIP, an inside authorities internet portal that holds categorized citizen data, like nationwide identification particulars, mobile phone registration and cell knowledge data, prison profiles and different data.
Numerous regulation enforcement and intelligence businesses have person accounts on the NIP portal offered by the NTMC.
NTMC’s personal investigation concluded that the brokers used the NIP platform extra continuously than others, and accessed and picked up data that was not related to them.
“Contemplating the context, such irrelevant entry and illegal handover of extraordinarily delicate categorized knowledge needs to be investigated to establish everybody concerned on this and we additionally request for acceptable motion in opposition to all these recognized/concerned,” the letter learn.
Baker advised TechCrunch that there have been a “variety of Telegram channels,” including that certainly one of them was referred to as BD CYBER GANG.
TechCrunch couldn’t establish the particular channel on Telegram.
Contact Us
Do you will have extra details about this incident, or related incidents? From a non-work system, you may contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Sign at +1 917 257 1382, or through Telegram, Keybase and Wire @lorenzofb, or e-mail. It’s also possible to attain out to Zulkarnain Saer Khan on Sign at +36707723819, or on X @ZulkarnainSaer. You can also contact TechCrunch through SecureDrop.
Baker advised TechCrunch that it seems that the 2 brokers despatched the data to the administrator of not less than one Telegram group, who then tried to promote it.
Baker stated that the 2 brokers have been notified of the investigation.
Due to the investigation, all NIP customers from ATU and RAB 6 have had their entry suspended “till the concerned officers are recognized, and correct motion is taken,” in line with the letter.
Baker confirmed the suspended entry, saying that if brokers “want any data for investigation functions they’ll gather via Police and RAB HQ.”
Spokespeople for Bangladesh’s Ministry of Residence Affairs and ATU didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark. An individual figuring out solely as an “operations officer” at RAB 6 advised TechCrunch that the company had no remark.
Final yr, a safety researcher discovered that the NTMC was leaking individuals’s private data on an unsecured server. The leaked knowledge included real-world names, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, places and examination outcomes, in line with Wired. One other Bangladeshi authorities company, the Workplace of the Registrar Common, Delivery & Demise Registration, additionally leaked residents’ delicate knowledge final yr, as TechCrunch reported on the time.
In each circumstances, the leaks had been discovered by Viktor Markopoulos, a researcher who works at Bitcrack Cyber Safety.
Whereas these had been important circumstances of information publicity, this incident allegedly involving the ATU and RAB 6 brokers is probably extra damaging, provided that the brokers allegedly offered data on-line in an try and revenue from their privileged entry to categorized private data.
Though the incident is below investigation, a well-placed supply inside the authorities advised TechCrunch that there are nonetheless officers who’re providing to promote residents’ knowledge.
