Gang selling personal information busted

A 10-member gang were caught in Beijing and Shanghai for illegally obtaining and selling personal information, with local police saying it had seized data belonging to nearly 1 million people. The gang made over 320,000 yuan (US$52,704) from the illegal dealings.

In mid-August this year, a woman filed a complaint claiming her personal information was leaked after she applied online for an exam and soon started getting spam messages relating to training classes of the same subject as the exam, prompting Zhabei District police to investigate online message platforms.

Police targeted an education information consultation company as the source for the spam messages and caught the boss in the Pudong New Area. The owner said he had bought the personal information from an unemployed local resident, surnamed Xu, who was caught in the same district on August 22.