Contraband mobile phones from India are seeping across the border and circulating throughout the Bangladeshi market, according to police, reports bdnews24.com.
Officials of the Detective Branch of Police, or DB, disclosed the information after seizing a consignment of stolen mobile phones from India in Chattogram.
A case was started on Monday with Chattogram Kotwali Police Station.
Informed of a consignment of contraband phones reaching Chattogram from Sylhet, police launched a drive and recovered 161 handsets from Sundarban Courier Service's office at Royal Plaza in Reazuddin Bazar, said Additional Deputy Commissioner Mirza Sayem Mahmud.
Police discovered that two cartons of mobile phones were sent from Sylhet to one Abdar Qaiyum.
The cartons contained 161 used phone sets bearing Indian phone numbers in its respective call lists, said Sayem. At least 54 sets had its packaging intact.
The recipient, Qaiyum, was informed about his parcel but he never went to collect it. Police later confiscated the phones and took it to the DB office.
Qaiyum owns a store called 'Kettle' in Hasina Market in Reaz Uddin Bazar, according to police. He hails from Jamirghona, Adhunagar in Lohagarha.
"The Indian phone numbers found in the dialled list along with the photos and information made it clear that the phones were smuggled from India. One of the sets had a cash memo from a store in India's Jamshedpur," Detective Police Inspector Iliyas Khan told bdnews24.com.
Qaiyum sent police a copy of an invoice for 108 mobile phones without packaging, and 56 with packaging, through one Nayeem Uddin claiming to have bought those phones from Expert Telecom in Karim Ullah Market in Bandar Bazar, Sylhet.
"There is no shop called Expert Telecom in Karim Ullah Market, Sylhet. Also, the mobile phones and IMEI numbers mentioned in the invoice are not the same as those of the confiscated ones," said Inspector Iliyas.
Two brothers, Syed Nizam Uddin and Syed Arif Uddin, collect the stolen sets in India and smuggles them into Bangladesh.
They use the address of Karim Ullah Market to distribute the phones throughout the country. They also send stolen phones from Bangladesh to India.
The courier service staff may be involved in the process, Inspector Iliyas said. "One carton was sent by Nizam but the other one had Sahal Khan as the sender's name. Sahal is a staff member at Sundarban Courier Service. The consignment was sent to Sylhet by Sundarban Courier Service on Jun 18."
Police named Sahal Khan, Qaiyum, Nizam and Arif as suspects in the case.
Sahal denied the allegation against him and said, "I am working as a cashier at the Dilkusha branch in Dhaka. I met Arif in Sylhet during my posting at the Sylhet branch from 2013 to 2015," he said.
"Arif called me on Jun 18 and said he needed to send some goods to Chattogram but the booking manager wasn't accepting the booking. I called the manger and requested him to book the goods. And so he used my name as the sender."
The IMEI number needs to be changed in order to sell stolen phone sets in the Bangladeshi market, said Inspector Iliyas. Sometimes these are caught by the police.
"But IMEI of Indian handsets can easily be refreshed using a computer and sold. Stolen sets from Bangladesh can be sold in India similarly."
