Chinese police bust large data theft operation

Police in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region announced on Friday that they have arrested seven suspects for stealing more than 2 billion items of personal data.

The data included people's email accounts and passwords, ID numbers, cellphone numbers and payment accounts from more than 60 countries and regions, said police in Chongzuo City.

The police found many abnormal logins of third-party payment accounts in the city in June 2017 and conducted a month-long investigation to bust the operation in a local community.

The suspects bought personal data for 100 yuan (US$15) to 200 yuan per million items, selected valuable information and then sold them at a higher price. In one year, they made hundreds of thousands of yuan from the trade, Chongzuo police said.