Mumbai crime: Four arrested for stealing mobile phones worth Rs 9.5 lakh from Borivli shop

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Four persons have been arrested by the Kasturba Marg police in Borivli (East) in connection with a mobile theft incident. The arrested accused allegedly stole 62 mobile phones worth Rs 9.58 lakh from a mobile store in Borivli. From loss of jobs to getting married and to loan debts, all four accused gave explanations to the investigating cops on why they resorted to the robbery, said the police. The cops also recovered the stolen mobile phones from the accused.

The accused identified as Umeshchand Kanojia (26), whose marriage was fixed on May 19 was working as a salesman in a mobile shop. Another accused, Yogesh Kanojia (26) was jobless, while Rampal Gupta (27), the third accused, an advocate and legal adviser in a nationalised bank, had taken a loan and was unable to repay it. The fourth accused identified as Abhishek Pal, was the employee of the mobile shop at Carter road in Borivli (East), where the burglary incident took place.

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According to the police officials, the incident occurred on May 8. The cops said that three accused entered the shop by opening the lock with a duplicate key that was provided to them by the fourth accused, who was the shop employee. The three stole 62 mobile phones including iPhones worth Rs 4.5 lakh.

A police officer said, "When we checked the CCTV footage of the shop, we found 3 people entering the shop. We suspected that an insider was involved in the crime when we noticed that the robbers had managed to enter the shop without breaking the lock. We scanned many CCTV cameras in the area and found these accused moving towards Kandivli from the highway. With the help of the footages, we traced the accused to Hanuman Nagar at Kandivli (East) and traced their location via mobile tower location and arrested them."

The investigating officer said, "During interrogation, the accused revealed that they plotted the theft, as getting access to the shop would be easy since one accused was an employee. We also recovered the stolen mobile phones from them."