"FSB operatives arrested several individuals who had been involved in the illegal purchase and trade of large electronic databases containing confidential commercial, tax, and banking information," the statement said.
The information was presumably stolen from databases of the Federal Taxation Service and other financial control bodies.
During a joint sting operation conducted by the FSB and the Moscow police department November 15-16, operatives seized copying equipment and thousands of CDs with electronic data ready for distribution.
Some media had reported earlier that an electronic database on personal incomes of Muscovites and residents of the Moscow region for 2004 had appeared on the capital's "black market." It allegedly contained about 9 million entries with individual information on income, place of work and residence.
