Lost & phoned: Rs 1 crore worth of stolen mobiles find their way back to Ghaziabad from Kashmir to Kerala

In a mobile phone recovery operation that could be straight out of a detective novel, the Ghaziabad's police have returned 425 stolen phones, totalling a whopping Rs 1 crore, to their rightful owners this Sunday, reported TOI.

How did they do it? With a little help from the central equipment identity register (CEIR), a nifty government-run system that tracks phones by their IMEI numbers.

TOI reported that between February 23 and April 13, the police traced and retrieved over 1,200 phones, many of which had been bought at bargain prices by unsuspecting buyers across India. Little did they know, they were getting their hands on stolen property.


A number of these phones were sent back to Ghaziabad police headquarters by buyers located as far as Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir (over 800 km away) and Kerala (2,500 km away).

"These phones had been snatched or stolen across the city last year and were sold on the cheap, often without any paperwork. Thanks to complaints filed on CEIR, we were able to track them down," an official explained to TOI.

The figures were impressive: The city zone led the charge with 625 phones recovered, followed by the rural zone with 307, and trans-Hindon with 253. The phones ranged from Rs 10,000 to over Rs 1 lakh in value, and while most were stolen, a few were snatched.

Take Rinki Shukla, for example. She lost her phone in an e-rickshaw ride to Ghaziabad railway station back in December while en route to catch the Shatabdi to Dehradun. After a fruitless attempt to call her phone, she filed a complaint. Fast-forward to now, and Rinki was thrilled to receive the news that her phone had been recovered and was ready for pickup.

Rajesh Kumar, DCP (city), explained that the police compiled a list of stolen phones using data from CEIR. "The Kotwali area had the highest number of thefts, with 137 cases, followed by Sihani Gate with 64 and Nandgram with 63," he told TOI.