The Hindu : New Delhi News : Four held for cloning mobiles

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Thursday, Mar 13, 2008
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New Delhi

Four held for cloning mobiles

Staff Reporter

Investigations followed complaint by Reliance
Seized laptop, pen drives contain various software

NEW DELHI: Four young men have been arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi police on charges of cloning Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) mobile phones. The police claim to have seized cloned mobile handsets, a laptop, two card readers, SIM cards and documents during the operation.

The Special Cell received a complaint from Reliance Communication Limited that some persons were cloning the firm’s CDMA mobile phones. A case was registered and investigations taken up.

Through electronic surveillance, the police zeroed in on Ranjit Chaudhary, who had been receiving most calls originating from cloned mobile phones. Suspecting his role, the police picked him up for questioning. During interrogation, he purportedly disclosed that his acquaintance Vipin Yadav was engaged in cloning of mobile phones and SIM cards. The police then mounted surveillance on Vipin and on a tip-off that he would come to Yamuna Vihar arrested him on March 8 and allegedly seized a cloned mobile phone from him.

A software package used for extracting and superimposing contents of original CDMA phones, details of the procedures, list of cloned numbers and other related documents were also seized from him, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Alok Kumar.

During interrogation, 22-year-old Vipin purportedly disclosed that he belonged to Madhepura in Bihar but was now living in Gurgaon. At his instance, the police arrested his accomplice Kishan Singhal (29), who ran a mobile phone shop at Yamuna Vihar. Besides the laptop, pen drives and other accessories, the police also seized 46 data cables from the shop.

“The laptop and the pen drives contain various software programmes used for cloning mobile phones,” said Mr. Alok Kumar, adding that two more members of the gang, Krishan Arora (40) and Sanoj Yadav (20), were arrested on Tuesday.

Krishan purportedly disclosed that he also ran a shop at South Anarkali and used to supply the electronic serial numbers of mobile phones and necessary software to the other accused. Kishan told the police that in 2005 he came in contact with Vipin and roped him into the business. Kishan charged Rs.5,000 for cloning a mobile phone, the police said, adding that he used cloned mobile phones only to make calls among themselves and never received any calls to evade identification.

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