Overview
- Six adults were arrested and two juveniles detained during a Phase 2 police stop in Kakrala village on January 6.
- Officers identified the adults as Govinda Mahto, Rohit Saini, Shyam Kumar Rai, Bhartiya Mahto, Shekhar, and Pradeep Kumar, with several living in Noida’s Bisrakh area.
- Most of the recovered devices were OnePlus models followed by iPhones, indicating a focus on high-value smartphones.
- The group targeted crowded markets, mandis, and transit hubs in winter, used quick hand-offs and lookouts, and frequently shifted rented lodgings to avoid detection.
- Phones were consolidated in the NCR, taken by train to Bihar and Jharkhand, then sent to Nepal for sale, with multiple cases registered under the BNS and prior links under investigation.