Corporate spying: RIL staffer among 5 held for stealing Petroleum Ministry papers

Corporate espionage has been taking place in India since long. Most of the industrial spies manage an easy escape while stealing government documents. However, as per a PTI report, Delhi Police have held five people for allegedly stealing official documents from Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and sell them to energy bigwigs.

Those who have been arrested in the case include government employees as well as a former journalist.

In 2014, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) had stressed on the fact that "business espionage" was a major threat for companies in India.

To stop people from sneaking out official documents, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ordered almost all government organizations to install closed circuit cameras late last year. Using the details shared in these documents, bigwigs of business world try targeting lucrative deals.

The arrests made on Thursday were the first high profile incidents ever since the cameras were installed in government offices. On Thursday night the Delhi Police said that they had information that some people were "trespassing" in the ministry offices at night using false ID cards and duplicate keys for offices of officials, the new agency reported.

As per a statement issued by the police, "Investigations further revealed that the stolen documents were being sold to some individual of private energy consultancy companies."

Delhi Police caught the men red handed but didn’t reveal the names of arrested people. A Reliance Industries official said that the Indian conglomerate got to know that its officials have also been detained in link with the case. However, he did not confirm media reports that police had also searched Reliance offices.

On Friday, shares of Reliance Industries fell as much as 3.12% on BSE, while on NSE, it was down by 3.21%.
(Image: Reuters)