Nagpur: The Local Crime Branch team of Nagpur Rural Police, aided by the Cyber Cell, on Saturday arrested two accused of mobile shop break-ins in rural areas and the city. Police took help of GPRS data mining to scan around 7,000 devices to zero in on the suspect’s cellphone details.The arrested accused, Nilesh Kadwe, 28, and Pramod Samudre, 31, residents of Samata Nagar, have past crime records. Police recovered 21 smartphones, one tablet, 57 keypad mobiles, three old defunct mobile phoness, total worth 5 lakh, cash 8,000, two mopeds worth 1 lakh, tools for shutter breaking worth 5,450, three fake bill books worth 1,200 and two fake Aadhar cards. The total value of the seized property is 6 lakh.The arrested accused were handed over to Aroli police station along with the seized material. Police said the duo would break shutters of shops and steal mobile phones along with receipt books. “They used an app for making fake Aadhar cards. These fake documents and the stolen receipt books were used to resell the stolen phones,” said an official.The main accused would mention the phone number of his associate on the fake receipt as the contact for verification. Whenever a purchaser called the number to verify, the associate would pose as the mobile seller and claim the buyer was unable to pay EMI and wanted to sell it back to fulfil the payments. “This scam helped them sell the stolen mobiles without raising suspicion,” the official stated.The investigation was conducted under SP Rural Harssh A Poddar and addl SP Anil Mhaske. The accused are linked to six cases filed at police stations of Aroli, Umred, Katol, Kalmeshwar, Saoner and Hudkeshwar. The GPRS data surveillance allowed police to monitor online activity and movements of the accused and connect them to the various crime spots in rural Nagpur and the city. The house search led to recovery of electronic gas cutter, bunches of keys and stolen motorcycles.
