Data stolen from BJP MLA Mihir Kotecha’s logistic company, police register FIR

The FIR has been lodged on the complaint of Dhirendra Shrivastav, I-T manager at Greenwich Meridian Logistics, which is headquartered at Powai and is into import-export of goods

Mumbai The Powai police have registered a case after BJP MLA Mihir Kotecha’s company Greenwich Meridian Logistics (India) Pvt. Ltd, a global logistics service provider, filed a complaint alleging that an unidentified person had unauthorised access to the company’s computer system and accessed a crucial file that had details of their clients. The suspect later e-mailed the purportedly stolen file to an ex-employee of the company who after resigning from the job had launched his own logistics firm.

As per the police complaint, one Shrinivasan Ramesh was looking after the functioning of the company’s offices in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad as a regional manager (Twitter)

The FIR has been lodged on the complaint of Dhirendra Shrivastav, I-T manager at Greenwich Meridian Logistics, which is headquartered at Powai and is into import-export of goods. Kotecha and Bhavesh Narendra Thakkar are directors of the company.

As per the police complaint, one Shrinivasan Ramesh was looking after the functioning of the company’s offices in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad as a regional manager. He resigned from service on April 9, 2021, and later launched his own company I-Green Shipping and Logistics Pvt Ltd.

After Ramesh’s resignation, his access to the company’s email account was stopped and all the emails received on his email account were being auto-forwarded to the company director Thakkar and another regional manager, said the complaint.

In the same month, another employee Ajitkumar from the Company’s Chennai office resigned and joined Ramesh’s newly launched company as a sales executive. On October 19, 2021, company director Thakkar called a meeting of the complainant and the finance manager and informed them, that from their company’s ex-regional manager Ramesh’s old company email account he received an auto-forwarded email, which was sent from their ex-employee Ajitkumar from his new company’s email account.

“The said email had an excel file attached to it. This file contained all details of the complainant company’s 187 clients associated with their Chennai office. The file had details like their name, sales person’s contact number, shipment number, invoice number, client company’s outstanding, and other important data,” stated the complaint.

The complainant company then realised that someone had unauthorisedly accessed their system and stolen important company data. The complainant suspected that the two ex-employees could be behind it and filed a police complaint on Wednesday.

The police have for now registered an FIR against an unidentified person under sections 43B (downloading, copying or extracting any data, computer database or information without the permission of the owner of the computer or system) and 66 (computer-related offences) of the Information Technology Act.

“We are checking the involvement of the two ex-employees as they are under scanner after the complainant raised suspicion. No arrest has been made yet,” said an officer from the Powai police station.

When contacted, Kotecha said that they “suspect that someone from our company stole and provided crucial company data to ex-employees. We have also submitted supporting evidence to the police. The police are further investigating the complaint.”