The Mumbai crime branch has arrested 12 people in the last one month and managed to recover more than 700 mobile phones which were allegedly stolen from different parts of the city. The officials have learnt that the gang used to send stolen mobile phones to Bangladesh if the quality was good while phones of older models were sold in different states of the country after changing the IMEI numbers, the police said.

According to the police, Unit VI of the Mumbai crime branch had busted a racket last month and with the arrest of two accused, Mehboob Khan (37) and Fayaz Shaikh (31) from Maharashtra Nagar in Mankhurd, the officials had also managed to recover around 490 mobile phones. The crime branch officials had also seized equipment used to repair mobile phones. The crackdown started based on information received by constable Sambhaji Kolekar of the Crime Branch.