250 mobiles without IMEI numbers seized, 2 held

Ghaziabad Police on Saturday night arrested two people with a several invalid Nokia mobile phones without IMEI numbers and other mobile accessories.

Over 250 Nokia cellphones without the IMEI number and fake IMEI slips have been recovered from the accused. Apart from this sizeable cache of mobile boxes and rate slips, batteries have also been recovered, said police officials.

The arrested have been identified as Sandeep Singh Tomar and Pradeep Singh Tomar.

Both hail from Murena district of Madhya Pradesh, but presently live in Govindpuram area of Ghaziabad.

Neeraj Kumar Singh, SHO, Vijay Nagar Police Station, said: "We arrested the duo during a police checking at Chanakya Chowk in Vijay Nagar area. They were travelling in a Swift car which has also been seized by the police. Both accused are in police custody and an FIR against them has been registered under Sections 420 and 414 of IPC".

"Over 250 mobile phones have been recovered from them, along with fake IMEI slips and mobile boxes.

"Probably they were using these slips and boxes to convert fake mobile phones into original after sticking these slips and placing them in boxes. We will interrogate them to get more details as to how they were using these phones and the source from where they are getting them" said another police official.

The IMEI number is used by a GSM network to identify valid devices and, therefore, can be used for blocking a stolen cellphone from accessing that network.

It is also used to track the activity of mobile phones.