Karachi mobile dealers have handed over 3,386 stolen, snatched, and missing mobile phones worth more than Rs. 285 million to the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) over the past 10 years, according to exclusive details shared with ProPakistani.
The phones were identified when customers brought them to mobile dealers for resale and were checked against CPLC records.
According to the Karachi Electronic Dealers Association (KEDA), dealers also recently handed over 231 stolen, snatched, and missing phones worth around Rs. 5 million to the CPLC. The phones are expected to be returned to their rightful owners who had registered complaints.
Under an arrangement between KEDA, CPLC, and local police, dealers check new and used smartphones against CPLC records before reselling them. Phones reported stolen, snatched, or missing are handed over to the authorities.
KEDA President Rizwan Irfan told ProPakistani that dealers have been following standard operating procedures to prevent stolen and snatched phones from entering the resale market.
He said dealers inform sellers when a phone is flagged in CPLC records. In several cases, however, suspected criminals tried to sell large quantities of suspicious phones despite being warned.
Dealers and the association have so far detained around 20 such suspects and handed them over to the police.
Irfan said the used mobile phone market remains important for both traders and consumers, offering better margins for dealers and relatively cheaper phones for buyers.
He added that a significant number of stolen and snatched phones are still traded through informal markets and smuggled across the borders with Afghanistan and Iran.
The government had considered banning the resale of used mobile phones in 2016, but traders later developed a verification mechanism with authorities to keep the market operational while preventing stolen phones from being resold.
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