A leading telecommunication company has approached the crime branch in the national Capital after a Delhi-based businessman illegally procured their Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) and sold them.

As per the police, the company has lost more than 500 of its devices to the accused who has shops in South Delhi’s Sultanpur. He has allegedly been selling these devices, each of which cost around Rs 2500, since June this year. The firm said they have an office in Gurugram and offer services such as postpaid, prepaid, international roaming, data connectivity.

 According to the police, in order to provide these services, they use CPE. The CPE devices are telecommunications and IT equipment that are installed at the customer’s premises to connect to the network. Such devices include routers, modems, and set-top boxes.

 The firm said it reserves the right to sell, install, and manufacture these devices in order to provide postpaid, prepaid, international roaming, and data connectivity services.

“As a routine practice, we conducted an internal review of our CPE devices inventory and during such review, we came to know that the abovementioned person had been selling Airtel’s CPE devices (Modem & Routers) in an unauthorised manner in an open market at a substantially lower price,” read the FIR.

“The modus operandi was that a store is being run by said person who had kept Airtel’s CPE devices at two locations namely at Sultanpur and Saidulajab, from where he has been selling/dispatching the devices,” the FIR further stated.

“We further conducted discreet calls and enquired about the availability of these CPE devices, wherein accused Anoop admitted to procuring and selling CPE devices (old and new) with Airtel branding in an open market at a substantially lower price. We further came to know that he has been engaged in this illicit activity for the past several months, and he had made a significant amount of money from the proceeds of the sale of these CPE devices,” read the FIR.

“He even told us that he does not have any fear of law and the statutory authorities, as he had been doing this for the past several months and had not been caught until now,” the FIR added.

The person keeps the CPE devices in Sultanpur and Saidulajab, from where he sells and dispatches these devices for delivery, it said.

 The complainant said the man has been engaged in the sale of its devices for the past several months, police said.  On the basis of the complaint, police have filed a case under section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the IPC and are investigating the matter.