There are also leaks of sensitive data in Russia that could be related to the conflict in Ukraine.
Coinciding with the leak of secret documents from the Pentagon and other US agencies, a group of corrupt police in Moscow was selling personal data from Russian security forces to all sorts of clients, including Ukrainians. At least that's what the Federal Security Service (FSB, successor to the Soviet KGB) thinks, which has been going after them for two weeks searching several police stations and police offices in the Russian capital.
These inspections have affected almost all police departments in the central district of Moscow, the economic newspaper RBK reported on Tuesday. According to another medium, the Baza channel of the Telegram social network, several agents have already been arrested.
The searches are carried out by both the FSB and the Directorate General of Security of the same Ministry of the Interior, a source from this body assured the local media.
"The operation is being carried out in almost all police departments of the central district (of Moscow). The reviewers have inspected documentation and computer information", especially the databases, he assured RBK.
Then, with the help of the passwords, they downloaded the data they needed. The citizenship of the alleged buyers has not been revealed, but "it is assumed that among the customers there were citizens of Ukraine", adds this source.
Among the disclosed information are personal data of security force officers, judges and other special institutions.
According to Baza, the leak of "very sensitive information" was noticed in the middle of this spring, which in Russia is considered to begin on March 1.
Suspicion immediately fell on several employees of the Directorate of Internal Affairs (police) in the central district of Moscow. These workers were not dedicated to selling data specifically to Ukrainian citizens, but to anyone who contacted them via the internet.
To verify suspicions that the leak was within the police, FSB and Interior Ministry Security investigators decided to conduct an operational experiment. They found ads on darknet forums and responded by ordering information on several employees of the Moscow Prosecutor's Office. They received what they asked for and thus "confirmed suspicions that data was being leaked" from that department.
The FSB's investigation and inspections have put sellers of this type of information on the run. According to a Baza source, the accounts of those who offered these "services" on the darknet or on Telegram began to disappear "en masse".
