Vellore Police Return 300 Missing Phones Worth ₹60 Lakh to Owners

The Vellore district police handed over 300 ‘lost and found’ mobile phones to their respective owners on Tuesday. The phones were valued at ₹60 lakh.

The devices had been recovered by the Vellore district cybercrime team, following complaints about missing mobile phones.

Superintendent of Police N.U. Sivaraman handed over the phones to the owners at his office in Vellore town.

Cybercrime unit helped track missing devices

The initiative comes after the formation of a Cyber Crime police unit at the SP office in the district.

The police also introduced a cell tracker application through which complaints could be registered.

The cybercrime team monitored missing mobile phone handsets through their IMEI numbers at periodical intervals.

The police said lost phones were tracked using IMEI numbers, which helped the team identify devices when they became active again.

With the latest handover, the police have returned 2,588 mobile phones worth around ₹5.05 crore so far.

Alerts sent when phones were activated

The police said the missing phones were sometimes activated by people who found them on the road or by people who bought them second-hand without proper verification.

When such phones were activated, the cybercrime police team alerted the users, the police said.

The users then either handed the phones over to the police or sent them through courier from other districts and States.

The cybercrime cells took up all complaints related to snatching or missing mobile phones for investigation.

The latest handover adds 300 more devices to the phones returned through this process and takes the total value of returned mobile phones to around ₹5.05 crore.

Source: The Hindu