Surat: Avionics engineer among three arrested for running mobile phone racket

The other two accused had, till date, sold over thousands of phones to Jhope in the past one year.

According to Udhna police station, their surveillance team caught two youths – Ravi alias Rujmal Rajnath (31) and Santosh Gaekwad (44) – who are residents of Navagam Dindoli.

During interrogation, the duo confessed that they’ve been selling phones to an avionics engineer named Dhiraj Jhope (25), a resident of Dindoli.

Police arrested all three of them and carried out a detailed interrogation. On Monday, the trio were produced before the court, which was followed by a single day of police remand.

Udhna Police inspector SN Desai said, “Jhope turned out to be no ordinary thief, but a qualified engineer, working as a technical manager at Air India Airlines. He worked in the cockpit of flights. He has been working since the last ten months, earning a salary of Rs 35,000 per month. At just 25 years old, he has established a network of selling stolen mobile phone parts. Driven by greed, he formed a racket with two local mobile thieves — Ravi Rajnat (31) and Santosh Gaikwad (44) — to make a 50 per cent profit by removing the parts from stolen mobile phones, instead of selling them cheaply. According to information received, the accused was caught through a WhatsApp status. An informer told the police, after which they laid a trap to apprehend him.”

Desai further added, “Rajnat and Gaekwad steal mobile phones from crowded places, from buses and trains and sell them at Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 15000 to Jhope, who then opens up the entire body to remove the motherboard and other spare parts and put it on Whatsapp groups of mobile service centres. Against a Rs 10,000 phone, Jhope made around Rs 20,000 after dissecting them. Using his technical knowledge, he would buy tools online and break the lock of the mobile, remove the IMEI number and then pull out the parts. We have recovered phones ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 lakh from the accused.”

Police sources said 11 police complaints with different police stations of theft of mobile phones were detected. Police are trying to dig out more information from 0the three accused. Santosh came in contact with Jhope in 2023, for some mobile work and they became friends.

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