Tech-savvy robbers arrested for selling looted 4G devices online
Police on Thursday busted a gang of young technocrats who sold digital 4G devices to foreign buyers online after robbing them from different units of Reliance Jio in UP and Madhya Pradesh.
Police have recovered devices for digital voice and data transfer worth Rs 1.75 crore (robbed from the Reliance Jio Infocom Centre in Meerut) as well as a Wagon R car from the possession of the robbers.
Of the eight people arrested, four are engineers in mechanical, electronics and computer science while two are pursuing final year management and chartered accountant courses. Ravikant, an employee of Reliance Communications in Meerut who helped the gang by providing secret information about Jio centres, is still at large along with his aide Dharmendra.
“This was perhaps the first incident of its kind in which a gang of young technocrats formed a company and sold digital devices online to foreign buyers after robbing them from Reliance Jio centres”, said Sujit Pandey, IG of Meerut zone while appreciating the work of the joint police teams under the supervision of SSP J Ravinder Gaur.
DGP Javeed Ahmad has declared a reward of Rs 20,000 for the police teams which busted the gang. Senior Reliance officials have also thanked the cops.
These technocrats admitted to committing robberies in Reliance Jio centres of Aligarh in December last year and in Mathura in June this year.
Their next targets were Reliance centres in Meerut, Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar in the coming months and then they planned to target neighbouring Uttarakhand. IG Sujit Pandey said that so far the gang had robbed devices worth over Rs 5 crore and sold them to foreign buyers at 20 to 25% of the original price.
“We are still in the process of collecting information about their transactions with foreign buyers and other inputs related to their deals and motive behind the crime”, said the IG. Kingpin of the racket Chandan did a course in communication networking after Class 12.
He became an expert in digital networking after working in several companies including Vodafone, Nokia, Siemens and N R Switches in Gurgaon.
This was perhaps the first incident of its kind in which a gang of young technocrats formed a company and sold digital devices online to foreign buyers after robbing them from Reliance Jio centres SUJIT PANDEY, IG of Meerut zone
Chandan formed a company BK Bharti Enterprises and became its CEO to deal online with foreign buyers. He got secret information about installation of Reliance 4G towers and communication network while working with N R Switches in Gurgaon, which does outsourcing for Reliance. He then roped in Apoorv Srivastav, a BTech from Anand Engineering College of Agra. Later Pawan, Sandeep and Utkarsh Joshi (all B Tech) also joined them along with Kshitij Gupta and Bharat Vishal Singh (students of CA and MBA final year). Devinder of Mandavli , New Delhi joined them as driver.
The gang members overpowered the guards after entering the centres, posing as Reliance employees. They used Tata Indigo cars in committing robberies in Aligarh and Mathura centres.