The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Mobile phone racket busted; four held

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 12, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Mobile phone racket busted; four held

Staff Reporter

Six shops raided following tip-off; articles worth Rs. 30 lakh seized

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Huge haul: Commissioner of Police Neelam Achuta Rao (right), along with other officials, at a display of fake Nokia cell phones that were seized in Bangalore on Monday.

BANGALORE: The Central Crime Branch (CCB) has arrested four of the six men who were allegedly selling fake mobile phone handsets after loading Nokia software into them.

On a tip-off, the CCB sleuths raided six shops at Burma Bazaar, Hong Kong Bazaar and Bajaj Complex in Gandhinagar and seized 90 high-end handsets and a large number of mobile phone accessories, including batteries and leather pouches with fake Nokia label, together worth Rs. 30 lakh.

Commissioner of Police Neelam Achuta Rao told presspersons here on Monday that the accused were selling the fake Nokia handsets, the latest N-73 and N-95 models, for prices ranging between Rs. 8,000 and Rs. 9,000 while the original ones cost Rs. 25,000.

The accused had faked instruction manuals, guarantee cards and battery coverings of Nokia, besides loading the company’s software into the handsets. The boxes containing the equipment had the name Nokla or Nokai, identical to Nokia letterings.

“For untrained eye, the articles look as if they are original,” Mr. Rao said.

Investigation

Preliminary investigations have revealed that the handsets were manufactured in some other country.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Gopal B. Hosur said that as the accused had used the Nokia software, they would seek the assistance of the Cyber Crime Police Station to look into violations of the Information Technology Act, if any.

To a query, Mr. Hosur said they were in touch with Nokia to ascertain how its software had reached the accused and also whether any of its employees had connived with the racketeers.

The police gave the names of the arrested as Prakash (27), N.M. Sulaiman (41), Khaleed (20) and Mansoor (22).

Hunt on for two

Two others, Kishore and Mohammed Nassir, were at large and efforts were on to trace them, the police said.

A case has been registered at the Upparpet police station.

The arrest and seizure were made by a team comprising Inspectors K.V. Sridhar and M. Kalyan Kumar and other staff including N. Mallaiah, Venkataramana, S. Gangappa, Krishnaiah, Ramanna, Ramakrishnaiah, V.N. Anand, Kempanna and N.G. Sreenivasa Murthy.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) B.R. Ravikanthe Gowda supervised the investigations.

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