How to track your stolen phone using IMEI number

My friend Comr David John was attacked some days ago, and his phone, camera and other personal effects carted away by the hoodlums.

I put a call to him and asked if he had the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of his phone kept somewhere. He said, NO.

Currently, David is having difficulty locating what to use for tracking his phone.

This brings me to write this piece, as my way of educating my friends on how to track the criminals if your phone is ever stolen.

In February 2017, armed robbers numbering up to 10 broke into my apartment in Port Harcourt and carted away my properties and personal effects, plus the little money I wanted to buy Inverter system.

Among the items taken from me were 4 mobile devices (2 iPhone and 2 Samsung).

In my usual character, I normally keep the packs of my phones for years and also stored the IMEI numbers of my phones in the cloud.

After the robbery incident, I went to the police station in PH and made entries and submitted the IMEI. I also went to the DSS office and made entries, and submitted the IMEI numbers.

Two weeks after, the DSS tracked the Samsung phones and collected from one Hausa man. According to the DSS, the Hausa man said he bought it along Aba Port Harcourt from a mobile seller, you can imagine the audacity.

One month after, the police tracked 1 iPhone to a woman. They tracked the person the woman was calling and arrested the person, and asked the person to call the woman to meet her somewhere before she could be released. The person was told the phone her friend used in calling her is a stolen phone, she should comply or be detained. She invited the woman to meet her and the woman arrested.

Incidentally, the woman is a Barrister’s wife. She shouted at the police that her husband, the barrister bought the phone for her. She was asked to call her husband to come to the station. Her husband being a barrister fumed with anger while on the phone. The barrister came to the police station with the pack he bought the phone in a shop in Garrison.

The police asked the Barrister to write down the IMEI number written on the pack of the phone he bought, he wrote down. They gave him his wife iPhone and asked him to dial *#06# and write down the IMEI number. They asked him to compare the 2 IMEIs if they are the same, he was shocked that the IMEI number on the pack of the phone is different from the IMEI of the phone produced when dialing the *#06# code. They asked him to compare the IMEI produced by the dialing code to the IMEI number the petitioner submitted. He was shocked to realize they were the same. The police successfully established that the iPhone the woman was holding is my iPhone.

To cut the long story short, the Barrister later confided in me that he had spent N780,000 to the police to free himself and the wife. He pleaded that I should sell the phone to him at a moderate price since I already got another phone.

All other phones were tracked and collected. The other Samsung phone was tracked to a student in Delta State and was collected.

But in all of these, the police collected me N40k each for tracking the phone, whereas the DSS never collected me N1. It was unfortunate that the DSS officer who handled my petition got transferred the following week, and he called to tell me to pursue the case with his colleague who took over. Before that time, the police have already started tracking other phones, and so I decided to allow the police to continue.

Why this long story:

When you purchase an expensive phone, the first thing you should do is to check the pack and copy the IMEI number to a safe place.

If someone gives you an expensive phone, dial *#06# and record the IMEI in a safe place.

A situation may arise that you may want to track your stolen phone, this can help.

But the last time I lost my iPhone at a campaign ground in Uyo, I went to Uyo office of the DSS to file a report, I was told they don’t have the tracking machine. Even Akwa Ibom State Police Command at that time said they don’t have the tracking machine, except Calabar. I hope they now have it.