Snatchers sold stolen phones to passengers in trains, buses

New Delhi: Mobile phone snatchers have adopted a new tactics as per which they sell the stolen phone to railway and bus passengers so that the stolen phones go to other states and the chances of their recovery become less.

This came to light during a drive by Shahdara district police, during which they recovered over 50 Android mobile phones and iPhones.

According to cops, many snatchers go straight to railway stations or bus stops after snatching phones, and tell passengers that they are in need of money due to family problems and want to sell the phone.

"If a phone costs Rs 10,000, the snatchers will sell that to passengers for Rs 1,000 to 3000. The buyer also thinks that they are getting a good phone at lesser price," said an official.

He added that the phones would reach different states, making it hard for police to recover them.

The drive by Shahdara police district began in December last year. One of the phones belongs to an NRI, who had lost it in Shahdara. Cops also traced some phones, which belonged to the poor, including rickshaw-pullers.

Over 10 phones were found in use in states like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

"In one such, we visited Auraiya in UP, where we found that there was one mobile tower covering more than 10 villages and each village had over 700 Android users. The phones which we were tracing were being used with a new SIM. We met many villagers, but they were unaware of the phone sellers' name.

"After an extensive search, we came to know the location that the seller regularly visited and the shop he worked. We traced the person and he told he had bought it from another man in Delhi," said an investigator, adding that pre-activated SIMs have been used in different areas.

In some cases, even fabricated bills were given to buyers.

Another phone was traced through the WhatsApp photo of a buyer. After getting his location, cops visited the area and showed his photo to residents to traced the phone.

A mobile surveillance team, led by Inspector Heera Lal and comprising head constables Rahul Choudhary and Amit Choudhary made the arrest in the case. "Many buyers were innocent, who were unaware of the fraud," said a police official.

DCP (Shahdara) Nupur Prasad said that every police station in the district has anti-snatching team, who work specifically for detection of snatched phones.