The ₹99 Identity Market: Telegram-Based Personal Data Brokerage Targeting Indian Citizens — A Review of Reported Cases, a Three-Generation Taxonomy, and a Telegram-First Monitoring Framework

This review analyses the Telegram-based trade in stolen Indian identity data, building on verified published reporting from 2019 to 2026 — including the June 2025 investigation of a bot selling complete Indian identity profiles for ₹99 per search, the 2023 CoWIN vaccination-data bot incident, and 2026 reporting on live-query brokerage against verification systems. The paper models the market as a three-layer system (global breach forums, Telegram retail, Telegram fraud coordination), proposes a three-generation taxonomy of identity bots separated by data source (static breach dumps, aggregated multi-breach databases, and live-query brokers), and sets out a six-step Telegram-first monitoring framework for Indian investigators, with its operational, legal and ethical limits stated.