Mumbai: Cops bust racket involved in duping mobile customers; phones worth Rs 1.37 cr seized

Mumbai Crime Branch officials have unearthed a racket wherein a group of people were instrumental in advertising on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram about providing expensive mobile phones at cheap rates and would instead supply discarded and damaged phones to the customers through courier on cash on delivery. The police have seized nearly 3,200 mobile phones worth Rs 1.37 crore. The gang, police said, had been active for the past five years and is suspected to have duped hundreds of citizens. The police have arrested two persons for their alleged involvement in the case.

Those arrested have been identified as Rahil Ranka (25) and Siddhesh Sutar (24).

According to the Kandivali crime branch unit, specific information was received that at an office space in a building at Kaachpada in Malad (W), advertising was being publiicised on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram about providing expensive mobile phones at cheap rates and instead discarded and damaged phones were being supplied to the customers through courier on cash on delivery. The police then decided to carry out a raid at the said premises. On Wednesday, around 3: pm, a police team reached the said spot and intercepted Rahil Ranka, who was running his online mobile phone selling business from the said premises.

At the said office, the police saw a person expert in mobile phone repair and a head of staff Siddhesh Sutar. The police sources claimed that at the said premises, the accused was running a full-fledged customer care centre and had employed over a dozen people who were provided a script which they would use for making confirmation and verification calls to customers once they place an order. The accused also had a go-down in the said building where the discarded and damaged or repaired old mobile phones were kept. Once they would receive an order from the customer, the accused would pack the mobile phone and get it delivered to the customer through courier, police said.

The police have registered a case on charges of acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, cheating by personation by using computer resource.

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