Two senior officers working for anti-terror police in Bangladesh allegedly collected and offered labeled and personal information of residents to criminals on Telegram, TechCrunch has discovered.
The information allegedly offered included nationwide id particulars of residents, cellphone name data and different “labeled secret information,” in line with a letter signed by a senior Bangladeshi intelligence official, seen by TechCrunch.
The letter, dated April 28, was written by Brigadier General Mohammad Baker, who serves as a director of Bangladesh’s National Telecommunications Monitoring Center, 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 instances,” Baker stated in a web-based chat, including that the Bangladeshi Ministry of Home 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 Home Affairs Public Security Division, alleges the 2 police agents accessed and handed “extraordinarily delicate information” of personal residents on Telegram in trade for cash.
According to the letter, the police agents had been caught after investigators analyzed logs of the NTMC’s methods and the way usually the 2 accessed it.
The letter reveals the id of the officers. One of the accused is a police superintendent serving with the Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU). The different is an assistant police superintendent deputy on the Rapid Action Battalion, also referred to as RAB 6, a controversial paramilitary unit that the U.S. authorities sanctioned in 2021 over allegations that the unit is linked to lots of of disappearances and extrajudicial killings. TechCrunch just isn’t naming the 2 individuals who had been accused because it’s unclear if they’ve been charged beneath the nation’s authorized system.
The NTMC is a authorities intelligence company established beneath Bangladesh’s Ministry of Home Affairs. The company’s core job is to watch all telecommunications visitors and intercept telephone and internet communications to detect and forestall threats to nationwide safety.
Organizations like Human Rights Watch and Freedom House have criticized the NTMC for missing safeguards in opposition to abuses, each in opposition to free speech in addition to privateness. Over the years, NTMC procured subtle expertise from corporations in Israel, which Bangladesh doesn’t formally acknowledge, in addition to different Western nations, to conduct mass surveillance largely on opposition get together members, journalists, civil society members and activists.
As half of its mission, the NTMC runs the National Intelligence Platform, or NIP, an inner authorities internet portal that holds labeled citizen information, like nationwide identification particulars, cellphone registration and cell information data, legal profiles and different information.
Various regulation enforcement and intelligence companies have person accounts on the NIP portal supplied by the NTMC.
NTMC’s personal investigation concluded that the agents used the NIP platform extra often than others, and accessed and picked up information that was not related to them.
“Considering the context, such irrelevant entry and illegal handover of extraordinarily delicate labeled information must be investigated to establish everybody concerned on this and we additionally request for applicable motion in opposition to all these recognized/concerned,” the letter learn.
Baker informed TechCrunch that there have been a “quantity of Telegram channels,” including that one of them was referred to as BD CYBER GANG.
TechCrunch couldn’t establish the precise channel on Telegram.
Contact Us
Do you will have extra information about this incident, or related incidents? From a non-work system, you may contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or through Telegram, Keybase and Wire @lorenzofb, or e mail. You also can attain out to Zulkarnain Saer Khan on Signal at +36707723819, or on X @ZulkarnainSaer. You can also contact TechCrunch through SecureDrop.
Baker informed TechCrunch that it seems that the 2 agents despatched the information to the administrator of no less than one Telegram group, who then tried to promote it.
Baker stated that the 2 agents have been notified of the investigation.
Because of 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 agents “want any information for investigation functions they’ll accumulate by means of Police and RAB HQ.”
Spokespeople for Bangladesh’s Ministry of Home 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 informed TechCrunch that the company had no remark.
Last yr, a safety researcher discovered that the NTMC was leaking folks’s personal information on an unsecured server. The leaked information included real-world names, telephone numbers, e mail addresses, areas and examination outcomes, in line with Wired. Another Bangladeshi authorities company, the Office of the Registrar General, Birth & Death Registration, additionally leaked residents’ delicate information final yr, as TechCrunch reported on the time.
In each instances, the leaks had been discovered by Viktor Markopoulos, a researcher who works at Bitcrack Cyber Security.
While these had been important instances of information publicity, this incident allegedly involving the ATU and RAB 6 agents is doubtlessly extra damaging, provided that the agents allegedly offered information on-line in an try to revenue from their privileged entry to labeled personal information.
Although the incident is beneath investigation, a well-placed supply throughout the authorities informed TechCrunch that there are nonetheless officers who’re providing to promote residents’ information.
