If you are planning to buy a new high-end smart phone before this Diwali, make sure you buy it from an authorised dealer and not fall for the ‘special’ discount the shopkeeper in your locality may be offering, as chances are that you may end up buying a fake one.
Delhi Police have recently recovered a huge cache of counterfeit Samsung mobile phones and stickers worth around Rs21 lakh from several shops in Karol Bagh and lajpat Rai Market, and have arrested four shopkeepers so far. A senior police officer said that the first raid was conducted last Thursday at Hong Kong Plaza shop in Karol Bagh from where a total of 149 cell phones and 1,309 stickers of Samsung were recovered from the possession of shopowners identified as Avtar Singh (38) and Diljeet Singh (32), who were arrested later.
The second raid was conducted on Saturday at Shop No. 658 and 758 of lajpat Rai Market during which 121 fake mobile phones were recovered. “Two shopkeepers, Ramesh Azmani and Manish Gupta, were arrested in this case,” the officer added. The raids were conducted after officials of Enforcers of Intellectual Property Rights (EIPR) — a company which helps Governments, businesses and individuals to cope up with white collar crimes — contacted Delhi Police following which Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Alok Kumar constituted a special team to investigate the matter. The raids have raised apprehensions that such counterfeit mobiles could be supplied to other parts of the Capital as Karol Bagh is the wholesale market of mobile handsets and related accessories. What was shocking is that the mobiles recovered looked absolutely like the high-end handsets of Samsung S-IV and Galaxy Grand, the official said.
During interrogation, one of the accused disclosed that these were Chinese handsets which resemble the original mobile phones manufactured by Samsung. “They buy 500 to 1,000 units at a time, which are then supplied not only to other small retailers in Delhi and NCR, but also neighbouring States like Uttar Pradesh and Haryana,” said a police officer, adding that most of these fake handsets are manufactured in China. Police have registered a case under Section 63 of the Copyright Act 1954 at Karol Bagh Police Station and further investigations are on.