Vellore police hands over missing phones to owners

The district police in Vellore have handed over 300 ‘lost and found’ mobile phones, worth ₹60 lakh, to its respective owners on Tuesday. These phones were recovered by the Vellore district cybercrime.

The initiative comes after the formation of a Cyber Crime police unit at the SP office in the district, and the introduction of a cell tracker application where for complaints to be registered.

Superintendent of Police N.U. Sivaraman handed over the phones to its owners at his office in Vellore town. So far, the police have returned 2,588 mobile phones worth around ₹5.05 crore.

The cybercrime team had been monitoring the missing mobile phone handsets through their IMEI number at periodical intervals. Lost phones were tracked using IMEI numbers.  

The police said that whenever the missing phones were activated, either by those who find them on the road or by those who bought these phones second-hand without proper verification, the cybercrime police team alerts the user.

The users either hand them over to the police or send them through courier from other districts and States. Using cybercrime cells, all complaints of snatching or missing mobiles phones were taken up for investigation.