Do not buy second hand phones without proper documentation: City Commissioner

Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh on Wednesday urged the public to exercise caution while purchasing second-hand mobile phones without proper documentation, warning that such transactions could lead to both financial and legal trouble. “Buyers of undocumented phones often lose both their money and the device — the money goes to the thieves, while the phones are seized by the police once identified as stolen,” he said. 

He was elaborating on a recent special drive over the last month-and-a-half, in which the city police have recovered 1,950 mobile phones worth ₹3.02 crore which were robbed or lost in Bengaluru. 

Elaborating on the special drive, Mr. Singh said that officials from the Command Centre tracked down a total of 895 stolen and lost mobile phones through the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) portal, which helps track devices using their IMEI numbers. The cases were probed based on the complaints through the Karnataka State Police App and reports filed at various police stations across the city from March 2024, he said. 

Once the IMEI of a lost or stolen phone is uploaded to the CEIR portal, an alert is triggered whenever the device is switched on with any SIM card, allowing police to identify and contact the user to recover the handset. 

According to officials, most of those found in possession of stolen phones had unknowingly bought them from second-hand sellers. Of the total phones traced, 765 were recovered in Bengaluru. 

Mobile snatcher gangs busted

Meanwhile, the city police also busted multiple mobile snatcher gangs in the city as part of the special drive. 

Following a significant number of mobile snatching incidents being reported in and around K.R. Market area, the probe was transferred to the Central Crime Branch (CCB), who have recently busted a gang of six youths and recovered a whopping 422 mobile phones from them. 

The accused have been identified as Arbaz, Chandrashekar, Afroz, Madan, Shanthakumar, and Mohammed Yasin. According to the police, the gang used to target pedestrians moving around the market area and snatch mobile phones while riding bikes and also stole phones from passengers inside buses. They sold the stolen phones in the grey market for throwaway prices to fund their vices, the police said.

The remaining 633 mobile phones were recovered by various police stations seized probing mobile theft cases registered with them over the past month and a half.

In one such case, alert the Amrutahalli Police who went to check a suspicious vehicle below Hebbal Flyover recovered several stolen mobiles. The accused sitting in the car ran away as the police approached. But the police recovered 28 mobile phones from the car. A case has been registered and a probe is on to identify the accused.