This receiver made work of the phone thieves who scour the metro and RER trains. The 25-year-old man was arrested last week in Bezons (Val-d’Oise) by investigators from the regional transport security (SRT). He is suspected of having concealed 220 high-end telephones, stolen for about a year in transport in the Ile-de-France region. He was sentenced Thursday by the Pontoise Criminal Court to a three-year prison term.
The same chip inserted in stolen phones
The case begins on March 14 when a phone is stolen from the metro in Paris. Investigators carry out checks and discover that a chip has been inserted into this device. However, this same number has been associated with hundreds of stolen mobiles. The police understand that the line belongs to a certain Nadir, 25, very unfavorably known to the police for theft, concealment and forgery and use of forgery. This young man is located in an apartment on rue Henri-Barbusse in Bezons.
The police make an inventory of complaints for theft of phones that have passed through his hands. “Thefts are committed by unaccompanied minors (MNA) in Paris, Blanc-Mesnil (Seine-Saint-Denis), Pantin, Le Bourget, Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine), Levallois, Colombes or Villeneuve- la-Garenne, ”says a source close to the case.
Arrested in an apartment in Bezons
Investigators arrest their suspect on May 17 in his apartment. They get their hands on fifty stolen phones and 160 euros. The suspect is placed in police custody in the Parisian premises of the security. During the auditions, Nadir downplays his role and explains that he is just collecting phones that he is testing for a mysterious carrier he only knows as “Sango” or “Mehdi”. This man would be a specialist in exporting to the Maghreb. The police tried to identify the originator, without success.
