CCB sleuths nab two men running mobile robbery syndicate

Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths have arrested two miscreants who were running a mobile robbery syndicate and recovered 512 smartphones worth about Rs 78 lakh from them.

The arrested are Afzal Pasha, 27, of Padarayanapura in West Bengaluru, and Ezhar, 40, of Shivajinagar in East Bengaluru.

Police said Pasha was the mastermind while Ezhar was his close aide. Pasha ran a network of more than a dozen mobile phone robbers and Ezhar was one of them. He used to get mobile phones stolen by his associates and sell them in Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. His men targeted people travelling alone in the night or those waiting at bus stops.

Pasha had been arrested earlier for robbing mobiles and was released on bail. After coming out on bail, he started running the syndicate.

Police Commissioner CH Pratap Reddy said the accused persons used to sell mobiles to their contacts in Hyderabad, Delhi, and Mumbai to evade getting caught by the police.

On gathering information from Pasha about the syndicate, a team led by inspector Hazaresh Killedar, under the supervision of DCP (Crime-1) SD Sharanappa, arrested the duo. His associates had robbed mobiles in the city. The police learnt that Pasha used to collect the robbed mobile phones from his associates and send them to neighbouring states.

The police caught Pasha and Ezhar on July 5 from a bus station when they were sending the robbed mobiles to Hyderabad in a bus. It took over a month for the police to recover the stolen 512 smartphones in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

The police are trying to recover the phones the duo have disposed of in Delhi. After nabbing the duo, the police have learn’t that Pasha used to select the area to rob mobiles and assigned his associates to commit crimes in respective locations. As per the plan, he used to be in a nearby location and collect the phones from his aides. He used to wait till his team robbed around 100 phones, then packed them in carton boxes and sent them to other states in private buses.

He used to pay around Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 for each stolen phone to his aides and sold them for Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,000. Pasha began committing crime along with his father Aslam Pasha, who is a habitual offender.