Meerut: A fresh investigation will be conducted as per the directions of ADG Rajiv Sabharwal in the case of thousands of mobiles that are having the same IMEI. For the unaware, this case is of Chinese company VIVO which has more than 35,000 mobile phones operating with the same IMEI.
The matter came in prominence during June 2020 when Sub Inspector Asharam Who operates in ADG Meerut Zone Office provided his mobile to be repaired at VIVO’s service center in Meerut on 24 September 2019. The mobile was repaired but it failed to work properly which made Asharam submit his phone to the cyber crime cell for further investigation. It was identified out that the IMEI number of Asharam’s mobile phone is different from the IMEI number of the existing mobile.
However, when Vivo company’s service centre was investigated, they denied to have changed the IMEI number. Moreover, when information was collected from the Jio company, the report stated that on September 24, 2019, between 11 am to 11.30 am, about 13,557 mobile numbers were active on this IMEI number all over India. When the matter was probed further, it was made clear that over 35 thousand mobiles are being in operations from the same IMEI number.
Later in June 2020, a case was created and registered against the service centre or VIVO company and Inspector Ashutosh Kumar of Nauchandi police station took the matter in his hands. He had got a report in this Case by sharing notices to various officials including TRAI, VIVO. Later, a final report was made and the case was closed.
Now again the case has been reopened and it has been given to smart inspector of crime branch who will examine the basis of the final report and the evidence collected to close the case earlier.
