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Updated on: 24 March,2010 08:31 AM IST |
Manjunath L Hanji |

Desi clones of Nokia mobile handsets without IMEI numbers are being rampantly sold in Hong Kong Bazaar, City Centre

Desi clones of Nokia mobile handsets without IMEI numbers are being rampantly sold in Hong Kong Bazaar, City Centre

Recently, crime branch sleuths, along with Nokia officials, raided these places and confiscated phony handsets and accessories worth Rs 1.5 crore.

The shop owners mostly sell fake models of Nokia E and N series phones that do not have the mandatory IMEI numbers. Moreover, those producing the handsets all use the Nokia logo to dupe gullible customers.

Fake Nokia handsets and accessories worth Rs 1.5 crore were confiscated in the city recently.

It's estimated that shop-owners in the city collectively make aboutRs 5 lakh a day by sellingu00a0 fake handsets and accessories. Interesting, they sell the handsets at about five times lesser the price than the original ones.

According to city police, such phones are mostly used by criminals, as they don't have IMEI numbers and the chances of being caught is deduced given that cops can't track theiru00a0 location.

City Crime Branch ACP H S Duggappa said, "We plan to conduct several raids in future as well.

Nokia had informed us about the sale of fake handsets, as most of the spurious phones are the copy of their models of which the company possesses a trademark.

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