New Mobile Phones Illegally Used By Criminal Gangs Before Being Sold
By our team of in-house writers.
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First publised on 2025-07-08 06:21:02
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By our team of in-house writers.
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A new scam in cybercrime has been detected in Kolkata. An advocate in the city bought a high-end mobile phone for his wife from a reputed store in the cityâs central business district. Little did he know that the simple transaction would land him in trouble with the police of another state.
A couple of days after he gifted the mobile phone to his wife and she started using it, Gujarat police sleuths came knocking on their door. They were interested in the phone whose IMEI matched with the phone used to commit a crime much before the date the advocate purchased it in Kolkata.
So what happened? How did a brand new mobile phone land in the hands of criminal gangs who unboxed it, inserted a SIM and committed a crime using the device? And how was the phone repacked, made its way to the store through the distribution channel and was finally sold to an unsuspecting customer as a new phone?
The couple has registered an FIR against the store for selling them an old, used phone instead of a new one. They have produced the purchase invoice. Kolkata police has called the store owner, and the distributor from whom he got the supply, for questioning. This is the first such case that has come to light but it suggests that this is a new trick that cyber criminals are adopting to prevent from getting caught.
The worst part is that it takes just 30 minutes to unbox a device, insert a SIM and commit a crime, repack it and put it back in the distribution channel. And it can be done by any employee in the chain who has links with the gangs or who is given an inducement for the same. The company, the distributor or the store owner will never get to know this happened. And the unsuspecting buyer will be harassed by the police.
Until the Kolkata and Gujarat police get to the bottom of the matter, find out the modus operandi of the criminals and the supply chain is suitably sensitized, more such incidents will be reported. The risk will be greater when such mobile phones are ordered through online channels as they will pass through more hands before being delivered. Unfortunately, buyers have no way to know if the new device they are buying has been used for criminal activities before being sold to them.
