Gone in 2023, back in 2025: How stolen phones are coming back to owners, by courier

GHAZIABAD: This year, across India, among the millions of parcels being delivered every day are small packages addressed to different police offices and stations. These are from people who are returning stolen phones.

One such sender is a 35-year-old Pulwama resident, who had picked up a handset "at a discount price" from a local shop six months ago. Like any second-hand phone buyer, he was only interested in the mobile's condition, not its history. Reception OK? Battery life good? Satisfied, he closed the deal.The handset, the Pulwama resident would come to know a month later, belonged to Ranjeet Jha, a software engineer based in Ghaziabad.

In the blur of daily life in Delhi, Jha's memories of Oct 16, 2023 are vivid. He had set out from his house in Ghaziabad, crisply attired for a job interview in Delhi and had hopped into auto with three other passengers that would take them to New Bus Adda metro station on Red Line."My father had called me while I was in the auto and after finishing the call, I kept holding the phone in my hand rather than put it back in my pocket," Jha said.

His thoughts were on the interview, so he was unmindful that the phone was gone from his hand. "I only realised it when I reached the ticket counter and had to pay for the ticket. Later, I filed a police complaint," he said.Jha's complaint was registered on the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) portal, a govt platform operated by the department of telecommunication that monitors stolen handsets using their IMEI numbers.

In March 2024, among the phones IMEI trackers had picked up was Jha's. The handset had a different SIM, of course, registered in Jammu & Kashmir. The new number reached cops and a call went out from the police commisionerate in Ghaziabad. "The caller identified himself as a police officer and informed me that I was using a stolen phone. I was shocked," the Pulwama resident told TOI. "I replied that that I had purchased it in my hometown and I had an invoice for it.

After hanging up, I contacted the local police station and asked them if they could verify what I was being told. They spoke to Ghaziabad police and confirmed it was a stolen phone. So I decided to return it.

The cops suggested I could courier it to them and I did so."From different parts of India, 70 individuals sent back stolen phones to Ghaziabad police via courier. These were among the nearly 1,200 cellphones that were stolen, typically by snatchers who sold it in the grey market, or got misplaced by owners over the last two years that were found.Tracking of lost phones has hugely improved because of CEIR, though the portal is helpless if the IMEI number gets tampered with. But there are lakhs of phones that get stolen and sold with IMEI numbers intact, police officers said, allowing them to be tracked. So if a phone is stolen, there is a good chance that it can be traced and recovered.More than 50 lakh mobile phone details have been registered nationwide on the CEIR portal since May 16, 2023.

Of these, 31 lakh devices have been blocked and 19 lakh located. The actual recovery of mobile phones, however, lags at just 4.22 lakh across India.In Uttar Pradesh, according to the portal, a total of 1.7 lakh devices were blocked and 1.1 lakh handsets were traced. Police have so far successfully retrieved 27,537 devices. In Delhi, 7.7 lakh phones were blocked and 4.6 lakh mobile phones were located. Police have so far recovered 8,951.States with good recovery rates include Telangana (1.8 lakh located and 78,842 recovered), Karnataka (2 lakh located and 78,507 recovered), Rajasthan (65,368 traced and 26, 498 recovered), Andhra Pradesh (67,454 located and 24,198 recovered), Tamil Nadu (77,564 located and 25.852 recovered) and Gujarat (56,589 located and 21,211 recovered). Among the 1,200 stolen phone that found their way back to owners in Ghaziabad was Binod Kumar Gupta's handset that was stolen in Aug 2023.

Gupta said he had dozed off while travelling on a bus from Kushambi to Lal Kuan, where he lives, and woke up to find his phone gone. He informed the conductor, who searched the bus. Gupta then filed a police complaint."Honestly, I had no hope of seeing that phone again. My worry was that soft copies of all personal documents like marksheets, my Aadhar card, etc, were on it. My banking app was there too. On April 13 this year, I was surprised to get the phone back.

It was great to see police doing their job well," Gupta told TOI.The handset was located in Bhatinda. Its user's brother had visited Delhi in Dec 2023 and bought it from a shop. "When Ghaziabad police called me and said I was using a stolen phone, I thought it was some cyber scam," the Bhatinda-based user told this correspondent. He had used the phone for more than a year by then. "A senior Ghaziabad police officer spoke to me.

I verified the officer's details on the UP Police website. He also called me from the same mobile number that was mentioned on the police website.

I consulted my family and they advised me to return the phone. So I couriered it back. When the cops received the phone, they thanked me."Additional CP Alok Priyadarshi said IN Ghaziabad, the city zone leads with 625 recovered devices, followed by the rural zone with 307 recoveries and the Trans-Hindon zone with 253 recoveries.

"It is not easy to trace a missing or stolen phone. The exercise takes several months, beginning with surveillance. Phones keep getting switched off and they are in different parts of the country. The SIM details are traced once the phone is located from the telecom company.

If a phone gets dismantled or its IMEI number is changed, it is not traceable," he said.Asked about the difference in phones located and recovered, a police officer explained it as the gap between IMEI tracking and zeroing in on the most recent user through further surveillance and SIM card details, which takes time. Besides, the officer said, heavy caseloads and staff shortages are factors that slow the process down. Despite this, though, some states have begun to get their act together, hastening the recovery process.

UP, the officer said, is speeding the process up as well.