Police bust illegal mobile phone assembly, IMEI-tampering unit

new delhi: The Delhi Police has busted an illegal mobile phone assembly and IMEI-tampering unit at Karol Bagh and arrested five men for allegedly making handsets using old motherboards and altering their IMEI numbers, before selling those in the market, an official said on Thursday.

Police said the raid was carried out under Operation CyberHawk, a drive aimed at curbing mobile-related fraud, cloning and IMEI manipulation.

A total of 1,826 handsets were seized, along with a laptop used for International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) rewriting, specialised software, a scanner, thousands of phone body parts and printed IMEI labels, the police officer said.

According to police, a team worked on inputs for about 15 days, before receiving specific information about the illegal mobile assembly and IMEI-alteration unit at Karol Bagh.

Acting on the tip-off, the team raided Aditya Electronics and Accessories on November 20 and found five men assembling phones and changing IMEI numbers using specialised tools and software.

“All five were caught red-handed while assembling mobile phones and modifying IMEI numbers on a laptop, using a software identified as WriteIMEI 2.0, which is commonly used for cloning or replacing unique device identifiers,” the officer said.

The arrested men have been identified as Ashok Kumar (45), the owner of the unit, Ramnarayan (36), Dharmender Kumar (35), Deepanshu (25) and Deepak (19). During questing, they told police that they were running the operation for two years. They said they bought old and used phones, largely from scrap dealers, removed the motherboards and fitted those into new mobile phone bodies sourced from China.

After assembling the handsets, they changed the IMEI numbers using the software and sold the phones in the local markets through various channels. Changing IMEI numbers violates telecom rules and makes such devices untraceable, posing major risks for law-enforcement agencies.

Police said they have seized 1,826 mobile phones, both feature (or keypad) and smartphones, the laptop used for IMEI modification, an IMEI scanner, phone body parts, IMEI labels and other materials. A case has been registered and further investigation is underway,

they added.