NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police have arrested seven people, including government employees and a former journalist, whom they said ran a scam to steal official documents from India's oil ministry and sell them to energy consultants and large private companies.
India's government ministries teem with lower-level employees and papers, and accusations of copied sensitive documents are made at times ahead of major sales or tenders.
Last year, India's largest business organization said "business espionage" was a major threat for Indian firms.
Attempting to stem the flow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration installed closed circuit cameras late last year to prevent people sneaking out of the oil ministry with documents of interest to big corporations competing for lucrative oil blocks.
Thursday's arrests were the first high profile incidents since the cameras were installed.
New Delhi police said late on Thursday that they were tipped off that some people were "trespassing" in ministry offices at night, using false identity cards, temporary passes and duplicate keys for officials' offices.
"Investigations further revealed that the stolen documents were being sold to some individual of private energy consultancy companies," as well as to those in the petrochemical or energy industry, police said in a statement.
The arrests, initially just five, were made after police waited for the men at the ministry late on Thursday.
Police did not provide any names, but an official at Reliance Industries, one of India's largest conglomerates, said it had learned one of its officials had been detained in connection with the case.
The official said the company was unaware of any other details and it was conducting an internal investigation.
"We are determined to cooperate in every possible manner," the Reliance official said. He did not confirm media reports that police had also searched Reliance offices.
Shares in Reliance were down as much as 3.4 percent on Friday, making it the top loser in the NSE bluechip index, as traders cited concerns around the probes.
Reliance Industries is in international arbitration proceedings with the petroleum ministry over the implementation of higher gas prices and the disallowance of cost recoveries.