New Delhi, March 8 The Delhi Police has busted a racket involved in selling counterfeit spare iPhone parts and accessories as genuine products in Rohini, and has arrested five shop owners, officials said on Sunday.
Fake items worth around Rs 1.6 crore were seized during the operation.
The action followed raids at five shops located in a mall and a market in Rohini Sector 3, where a large quantity of counterfeit spare parts and accessories were recovered. According to police, the accused had been selling these fake products to customers by passing them off as genuine accessories.
The arrested accused have been identified as Dinesh (owner of Dinesh Spare Part), Shivam Singhal (owner of Singhal's Mobile Accessories), Shivam (owner of Pardhan Ji Communication), Puneet (owner of Satguru Accessories) and Ramkaran Sharma (operator of Kansal Accessories Nxt), the police said in a statement.
The police said a team received specific information on March 6 that several shops in Rohini were selling counterfeit spare parts and accessories of iPhones as genuine.
Acting on the tip-off, a team conducted raids at the identified shops. An authorised representative of Apple was also called to the spot and joined the raiding team during the operation.
During the raids, the shop owners failed to produce any bills or authorisation from Apple for selling iPhone products, a senior police officer said. Upon inspection by the company representative, a large quantity of counterfeit iPhone spare parts and accessories, including back panels, bodies, batteries, charging flexes, back covers, adapters and USB cables, were recovered from the shops and declared fake.
Police seized around 1,000 back panels of various iPhone models, 180 bodies, 228 batteries, 48 camera and charging flex components, 738 back covers, 14 adapters and 109 USB cables. The estimated value of the recovered counterfeit items is around Rs 1.6 crore, the officer said.
A case has been registered and further investigation is underway. The police said the accused had been running the businesses for some time and sourced the counterfeit products from suppliers and the open market.
Teams are now trying to identify the supply chain and trace the original source of the counterfeit products, he added.