Delhi Police busts racket selling fake premium mobile phones, 4 held

Delhi Police busted a fake premium mobile phone racket in Karol Bagh, arresting four men and recovering 512 counterfeit phones, fake IMEI stickers, and spare parts. The accused imported components from China, assembled the phones, and sold them as genuine units

New Delhi: The Delhi Police has busted a racket involved in the illegal assembly and sale of fake premium mobile phones in the Karol Bagh area and arrested four people, an official said on Sunday.

As many as 512 fake premium smartphones of a brand, including fold and flip models, along with a large quantity of mobile parts and fake IMEI stickers, were recovered during the operation, police said.

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Police said the accused were illegally assembling high-end phones using spare parts imported from China and pasted fake IMEI numbers marked “Made in Vietnam”. They then sold them in the open market as genuine branded handsets at prices ranging between Rs 35,000 and Rs 40,000 per unit, cheating customers, he said.

Following a tip-off, a police team was constituted, and a raid was conducted at the identified premises, where four men were apprehended red-handed while assembling mobile phones on the intervening night of December 13 and 14 at a shop located in Karol Bagh.

The accused have been identified as Hakim (36), the alleged mastermind of the racket, Mehtab Ahmad Ansari (36), Ravi Ahuja (36), and Rahul (33).

During the raid, police recovered 512 assembled and semi-assembled premium mobile phones, 124 motherboards, 138 mobile batteries, 459 fake IMEI printed stickers, besides a large quantity of mobile accessories and specialised assembling tools.

All the accused failed to produce any valid documents or satisfactory explanation regarding the possession of the recovered articles, following which they were arrested and a case was registered.

During interrogation, Hakim disclosed that despite being only an eighth-class pass with no formal technical qualification, he was operating the racket by importing mobile spare parts such as motherboards, cameras, speakers, back glass, body frames and fake IMEI stickers from China.

“With the help of his associates, he assembled new-looking premium ultra, fold and flip models due to their high market demand and sold them as genuine new phones to unsuspecting customers.