New Delhi: A Chennai-based 21-year-old delivery boy working for Flipkart has been arrested on charges of replacing 12 iPhones from his delivery packages with fake handsets.
According to reports by The New India Express, B Naveen first placed an order for an Apple iPhone from a fake address. On receiving the order for delivery, he would take the iPhone out of the package, replace it with a fake one, and return the product saying that the customer wasn’t satisfied.
This went on for about a month until the e-commerce giant noticed frequent returns from the same address. The company then decided to investigate and found that the original iPhones that were ordered were replaced with the fake Chinese handsets.
A complaint was filed, and Naveen was arrested by Madhavaram Police on July 3.
“First, he ordered one phone using a fake address and replaced it with a phone, a China model he bought from Ritchie street and sent it back to the warehouse saying that it was returned by customer. As he didn’t get caught, he followed it up twice by ordering in bulk,” an investigation officer told the newspaper.
According to the police, the phones were recovered and the value of the stolen phones pegged at over Rs 5 lakh.
Investigations into the incident revealed that the delivery boy was apparently in debt and stole the iPhones to settle the money.
This is not the first time that such a crime has taken place in the delivery of products from an e-commerce website. In 2015, one of Flipkart’s vendors fooled the e-commerce company for over Rs 1.5 lakh by selling sub-standard products and charging the company for good quality products.
There have also been reports of customers indulging in similar rackets by ordering high-end phones, replacing them with fakes and then claim a refund.
