KOCHI: What began as an unusual disappearance of 10 smartphones from Flipkart’s Muvattupuzha hub has exploded into a full-blown Rs 1.61-crore fraud stretching across four of the company’s delivery centres in Ernakulam rural district. The trail of 332 missing premium phones — including iPhones, Samsung, Vivo, and iQOO models — has led investigators to what they describe as a tightly coordinated, internally engineered heist.
Acting on a complaint filed by an enforcement officer of Flipkart Internet Pvt Ltd, Ernakulam Rural cyber police last week booked four men — Siddiq K Aliyar, Jassim Dileep, Haris P A, and Mahin Noushad — all hub in-charges and direct delivery partners at the Kanjoor, Kuruppampady, Mekad and Muvattupuzha hubs. They now face charges of cheating, criminal breach of trust, and cheating by personation under the BNS, along with offences under the IT Act.
According to investigators, the quartet allegedly created a miniature criminal network within Flipkart’s logistics chain. Using multiple phone numbers and fake addresses, they ordered high-value smartphones through the Flipkart app. When the devices reached their respective hubs, they allegedly marked them as ‘lost’ and diverted the boxes for personal gain.
“The fraud occurred during the peak festival sale, including the platform’s annual sale. We have seized several electronic devices from the hubs, and the suspects are currently absconding,” a senior Ernakulam Rural police officer said.
What the police found next made it clear this was no one-off stunt. A member of the probe team, requesting anonymity, revealed the suspects were working in close coordination and used a shared Google Drive to keep track of their fake orders.
“They shared details of the products they ordered using bogus addresses and multiple mobile numbers. They always chose the cash-on-delivery option. Once the phones reached the hubs, they collected them, marked the items as ‘lost’, and moved them out discreetly — often late at night after most of the staff had left,” the officer said.
Sometimes the same addresses were reused, but the mobile numbers always changed. Preliminary checks show that some people whose numbers appeared in the orders had no idea that expensive devices had been booked in their names. Tracing the IMEI numbers, identifying the IP addresses used to place the orders, and figuring out how the suspects accessed the OTPs are among the biggest challenges for the investigators.
In a bizarre twist, one of the accused even ordered a money-counting machine using his own registered mobile number — despite the hub already having one.
When contacted by TNIE, the complainant confirmed the details mentioned in the petition but declined to elaborate, saying more information would be released through a statement.
What started as a missing alert has now revealed a meticulously executed inside job — one that turned festival-sale frenzy into a perfect smoke screen for a heist hiding in plain sight.
As per the complaint
106 smartphones worth Rs 53.41 lakh went missing from the Muvattupuzha hub
101 phones valued at Rs 48.66 lakh were unaccounted for at Mekad hub
87 cell phones worth Rs 40.97 lakh were declared “lost” at Kuruppampady hub
38 smartphones priced at Rs 18.14 lakh went missing from Kanjoor hub
*Between Aug 31 and Oct 26, 2025