CPLC has recently published the report on the cell phones snatched/theft incidents. According to their data which they collected from February 2009 to January 2010, a total of 36377 cell phones were reported snatched or theft. Those snatch/stolen incidents which were never reported are other than this figure.

CPLC has compiled their data according to areas, brands and colors such as…

• Samsung has been most stolen mobile after Nokia. Nokia made almost 75% of total snatched/stolen phones
• Snatchers like Black color mobile phones more. Or let’s put it this way, there are more black phones in the country than any other color. A total of 77.4% snatched cellphones were of Black in color.
• 44.4% of the incidents occurred in Karachi alone
• Karachi Saddar came second in the list after Gulsh-e-Iqbal
• 12529 mobiles are reportedly snatched
• 23848 cellphones are reported in theft columns.
• 45568 reports of cellphones snatched/thefts were from Punjab.
• If you are carrying white body Trend Mobile cellphone then better do a bit of tap dance because the snatchers don’t like this as a whole. Only 1.8% of the total reported incidents were of white body color in nature. Whereas only 45 mobiles of Trend Mobiles made were reported snatched/theft.
• Karachi West is having least reported incidents. Only 4.9% of the total!

It must be noted that there is no info regarding the recovery of cellphones, meaning that, there were either no recoveries made at all, or they are very little in numbers.

As an estimate, unreported incidents of cellphones may go as high as 11 fold of reported numbers.

On PTA’s part, these numbers suggest that regulator has failed to aware consumers and blocking handsets through IMEI system, that is in place for years now. It looks that there is a huge market for stolen handsets, which are being purchased and then re-purchased with no hurdle at all.

It merits mentioning here that IMEI based blockage system had failed when shopkeepers started re-setting IMEI numbers of blocked cell phones (through easily available software).