new delhi a travel firm has reported a suspected case of corporate sabotage wherein one of its former employees allegedly stole a large number of customers private data such as credit and debit card details allegedly at the behest of a rival firm the firm has also alleged transfer of crucial customer data and financial information from its serversthe police have begun an investigation after registering a complaint under the information technology act and invoked sections of identity and data theft apart from ipc sections of criminal conspiracy sources said the employee has sent in his resignation and stopped responding to firms emails after the alleged fraud was detected the complaint allegesaccording to police the southwest delhibased firm was run in collaboration with a ukbased travel portal in 2014 they hired a travel consultant and provided him with extensive training about internal systems and work operations the consultant became a star employee after which the firms official uk id was allotted to him he was given a pseudonym of simon to carry out the bookings on firms behalf police saida few months ago the firm conducted an internal audit of its servers during which it detected some unusual and suspicious communication from the official email id of the consultant an analysis of mails revealed that the employee had not only sought the credit and debit card data of customers but also transferred them to two gmail accounts from the firms id a senior officer saidthis led to a full fledged inhouse inquiry by experts who managed to dig out more dirt on the suspect the accused was found to be in touch with a rival travel firm and had been booking tickets with its help so there were tickets booked at minimum price on behalf the rival firm which the consultant allegedly sold to his employers customers at a higher price this transaction took place in his personal capacity and led to monetary losses to the employer and its customers this was also a criminal breach of trust the complaint statesthe consultant in question also used a debit card belonging to the rival firm to book the tickets at minimum price the firm has alleged citing its inquiry report