Three employees with three telecom companies were charged with illegally acquiring, providing and selling citizens' information at Chaoyang district court, the first such case in China.
The three people worked with the Beijing branches of China Mobile, China Unicom and China Netcom, prosecutors said on Tuesday, according to Mirror Evening News.
Zhang Ning, 28, worked at China Mobile's call center in Yizhuang. He was charged with changing more than 100 subscribers' passwords. The information was then sold to a private detective agency, which used the information to see the phone bills of people who were the targets of the investigation company.
Tang Nayu, 40, was in charge of network maintenance at China Unicom Beijing branch. He used his authorization to provide phone bills of China Unicom subscribers, sold the information and made more than 20,000 yuan, prosecutors alleged. A testimonial from China Unicom said Tang also helped a private investigation agency to locate the whereabouts of some China Unicom users.
Wu Xiaochen, 28, was a sales representative with China Netcom Beijing branch. Zhang Ronghao, shareholder of Orient Hunter Business Investigation Center, paid Wu 2,000 yuan a month for client information.
Wu, a fan of detective stories, even established his own company and bought client information of China Mobile and sold it for profits, Chaoyang district prosecutors said.
The three men are among 14 suspects charged in a private investigation agency case.
The main suspect, Zhang Ronghao, was charged with setting up four illegal private investigation agencies from July 2004 to 2007. His brother, Zhang Rongtao, set up another such company in May 2006.
Prosecutors claimed the five companies shared resources to investigate on debt and marriage disputes.
The profits of the companies varied from 200,000 yuan to 600,000 yuan.
Zhang Ronghao allegedly told police that he hired more than a dozen detectives to investigate extramarital affairs for clients. Each detective was equipped with a video camera to collect evidence and a GPS device to locate targets.
Zhang said he bought the information online and from sources such as telecom companies.
Zhang was also accused of sending gangsters to debtors' homes or companies to threaten them.
Another man, whose information was sold to his debtors, was located by the debtors and killed, prosecutors said.
The court did not issue a ruling on Tuesday.