Inc42 Daily Brief
Stay Ahead With Daily News & Analysis on India’s Tech & Startup Economy
Delhi Police on Tuesday (today) has sent a notice to the ecommerce company Flipkart, after arresting 6 people who were involved in theft of a consignment of 600 high-end mobile phones, out of which over 200 were sold through Flipkart.
The mobile phones were worth INR 1 Cr. and were stolen from cargo hub of Delhi airport in July.
The six accused were identified as Raju Singh (31), Sunil Jain (40), Gaurav Mittal (44), Jitender Girotra (28), Harender Singh (42) and Ravi (26).
In the notice, IGI Police has asked Flipkart to cooperate with the probe in the connection with the stolen phones, which were sold through their portal.
Flipkart spokesperson added that Flipkart being a marketplace helping sellers connect with customers across the country. Each and every of its 40,000-plus sellers are mandated to adhere to stringent guidelines. “Any exception to, or violation of this code of conduct is taken very seriously. We enforce a strict policy of zero tolerance against unscrupulous sellers who sell products that are fake, stolen, or in violation of any applicable law of the land.”
Speaking on the incident, Dinesh Kumar Gupta, DCP, said, “During investigation, facts emerged that a peculiar method was adopted by the accused, who sold these mobile phones via Flipkart.”
As of now, Delhi Police has managed to recover 209 of the 600 mobile phones stolen.
How this incident occurred:
In July, Police received a complaint from SVS Logistics company from Hong Kong that 600 of their shipment of 1500 HTC mobile phones were missing. Reportedly, the theft is suspected to have occurred when an SVS Logistics agent was away trying to arrange a cargo vehicle to transport the consignment; to be delivered to NPS Telecom Pvt Ltd in Okhla.
Upon receiving the complaint, Delhi police formed a special team for investigation. Firstly, they analysed all CCTV camera footage overseeing the cargo hub, but couldn’t find any clue. Then they checked the technical surveillance of all stolen phones through their IMEI (International Mobile Station Equipment Identity) number and found out that they were in use in various places including Mysore, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Chandigarh.
The team then questioned the end-users, and discovered that all users had purchased the mobile phones from Flipkart and had received a receipts of the same.
On the basis of information, police arrested Raju Singh, one of the accused, and also recovered one of the stolen phones with him.
His arrest led to leads on the other accused. He then revealed that Narender, the driver of a vehicle plying at the Cargo Terminal at IGI, was the mastermind. Despite several raids, police have not managed to find him yet.
“Narender stole the phones and supplied them to different dealers in Karol Bagh, Gaffar Market and Mahipalpur. We arrested Harinder Singh who runs a mobile shop. Police recovered 128 phones from him. He was caught selling stolen phones supplied to him by Narender. The dealers in these markets supplied the phones to dealers in Bangalore and Rajasthan. Along with Delhi, the trail also leads to Bhilwara in Rajasthan,” Kumar said.
Another incident happened last week with Flipkart! Veera Swamy, an individual based out of Andhra, found a loophole in the return policy of Flipkart. He tricked the company for over 20 months using its return policy that ended company losing over INR 20 Lakh.
Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.