BERHAMPUR: Bada Bazar police on Saturday arrested four members of an inter-state mobile phone snatchers’ gang and seized around 324 stolen smart phones from their possession.
The accused have been identified as Sonu Das (20) and Sahil Das (31), both residents of Dharakote area in Ganjam district, and D Raja (38) and Paspuleti Srinivasulu (39) of Paschim Godavari area in Andhra Pradesh.
Berhampur SP Saravana Vivek M said the accused snatched mobile phones from people in crowded places after which they reset all data from the devices and sold them in the market at lower prices.
Police initially intercepted Sonu and Sahil while patrolling along the Aska road area on Friday night. On being questioned about their whereabouts, the duo fumbled, following which the cops searched their belongings and found over 100 mobile phones concealed in a carry bag. When they could not provide any satisfactory response regarding possession of such huge number of mobile phones, they were taken to the Bada Bazar police station.
Later during further questioning, they confessed that those mobile phones had been stolen from cities in other states like Chennai and Hyderabad, and brought to Odisha to be resold at lower prices. They informed that they had been operating from a rented house in Srikhetra Bihar in Berhampur’s Aska road area. They reportedly replaced the mobile phone spare parts to avoid getting detected by the original owners or the cops, before selling them, police said.
On gathering information from the duo, police raided their rented house and nabbed the other two accused Raja and Srinivasulu, besides seizing several more mobile phones. All the four were arrested on the day and produced in court, said the SP adding, further investigation is underway.