A 51-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly buying 2,280 stolen mobile phones and selling them to dealers across Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat, the police said on Sunday. The police have recovered 682 mobiles.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (South-West) Devender Arya said the accused has been identified as Jagdish Kumar Madan alias Shanty, a resident of Haryana’s Rohtak. He allegedly sold the stolen merchandise complete with receipts to other dealers claiming he had bought them from a shop shut during the sealing drive in Delhi.
Jagdish allegedly told the police that a former customer Sahid told him that he had stolen 2,280 stolen mobile phones while they were in transit from Delhi to Noida and wanted to sell the booty. Jagdish purchased the stolen mobile phones worth nearly ₹32 lakh from Sahid for ₹11.20 lakh.
The proprietor of Shree Cargo Carriers had on November 3 filed a police complaint regarding the theft of mobile phones from a truck. The complainant told the police that he had sent 410 boxes containing 60 mobile phones each in a truck from Noida to outer Delhi’s Bamnoli around 12.30 a.m. on November 1 but 30 boxes were found missing when the vehicle reached the warehouse. The truck driver told the police that he had parked the truck for a few hours in R.K. Puram as he was sleepy. He woke up and drove to the warehouse, where the theft was discovered and the police informed.
During investigation, the police traced the location of one stolen mobile phone to Madhya Pradesh’s Maihar. The owner of the phone was identified as Ashok Kumar Verma, who told the police that he had bought it from a local shop. Investigators then stumbled upon a chain of dealers in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat who had unwittingly purchased the stolen phones.
Investigation revealed that the phones were sent to Indore from Delhi via courier. The package also contained receipts for the merchandise. An Indore-based mobile phone dealer sold all the phones to a dealer at Seoni in Madhya Pradesh on commission basis. The mobile dealer in Seoni in turn sold them to shop owners in Bhopal, Katni, Satna, Balaghat, Chhindwara , Jabalpur at Madhya Pradesh and Nagpur in Maharashtra. The courier company tracked the package and told the police that it was sent by Jagdish. He was arrested from his residence, the police said.
