The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Inspector Tim Dowdeswell, told the Today programme that some clients of the site, called Confidential Access, went on to commit major frauds of their own.

BBC: Police seek 11,000 users of online 'fraud factory'

Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently recruited Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing the worldwide web, to look into opening access to more government data.

BBC: Cameron pledges 'right to data'