Lahore police to chase altered IMEI numbers: how to check a used phone on 8484

Lahore police are going after the people who change IMEI numbers on stolen phones, not just the ones who snatch them. Capital City Police Officer Bilal Siddique Kamyana ordered a crackdown on IMEI tampering at a meeting reviewing organised mobile phone theft in the city.

The IMEI is the 15-digit serial burned into every handset. Altering it is how a stolen phone gets resold: once the number is changed, the device no longer matches the one reported stolen and it can be re-registered and traded as clean stock.

What the police said they will do

The meeting set out several measures. Police will geofence theft hotspots and raise surveillance in those areas, deploy extra personnel there, increase patrolling and run plainclothes decoy operations.

Officers were told to arrest pickpockets and phone snatchers and to step up watch on crowded places, markets, public gatherings and public transport.

The part that matters for the resale trade is the backtracking. Police will trace the wider network by working backwards from recovered devices, verifying identification documents and transaction records, and acting against the illegal purchase and sale of stolen phones and their spare parts.

That is aimed at the shop counter rather than the street. A snatcher is replaceable; the buyer who reflashes the IMEI and moves the handset is the bottleneck.

Check the IMEI before you buy a used phone

For anyone buying second-hand in Hafeez Centre or on Facebook Marketplace, the checks are quick and worth doing in front of the seller.

Dial *#06# on the handset. That displays the IMEI the software reports. Then compare it against the IMEI printed on the box and, on most phones, the one etched inside the SIM tray or under Settings, About phone. A mismatch between what the screen shows and what the physical label says is the clearest sign the number has been altered.

Next, send the IMEI by SMS to 8484. PTA's DIRBS system replies with the registration status of that device on Pakistani networks. A phone that is not registered, or that comes back blocked, is either a tampered device or one that never had duty paid on it.

Check the status on a working SIM in the phone itself, not just the number the seller reads out to you.

Blocked and stolen are different problems

A phone can fail the 8484 check for two unrelated reasons, and buyers confuse them constantly.

One is theft: the device has been reported and blocked. Nothing makes that phone legal, and paying to "unblock" it is money gone.

The other is duty: the handset was brought in from abroad and never registered, so it works for a short grace period and then loses network access. That one is fixable by paying PTA tax, and the amount depends on the model and whether you register on passport or CNIC. Our PTA tax calculator gives the figure for a specific handset before you commit.

If the seller cannot explain which of those two situations applies, walk away.

If your phone is taken

Report it to the police station in whose jurisdiction it was snatched and give them the IMEI from the box or your purchase receipt. That is what puts the device on the blocked list and what makes the backtracking described above possible.

Keep the box. Almost nobody does, and it is the one document that ties a serial number to you.