Was the gang of robbers who hijacked a Samsung truck of “electronic goods” worth Rs 25 crore looking for the first consignment of Samsung Galaxy S6 phones for the Indian market?
The gang allegedly drove off with the truck in southeast Delhi’s Kalindi Kunj area just after midnight last night as it was going from Indira Gandhi International Airport to Noida in Uttar Pradesh. A police officer told PTI, that the truck was stopped on a deserted stretch near Kalindi Kunj by some people in a car who then beat up the driver and helper and fled with the truck. The gang was thoughtful enough to remove the GPS tracker from container truck.
While four people have apparently been detained for the heist, the Delhi Police has not yet fully solved the case. But it is reliably learnt that the gang was expecting the truck to be full of Samsung’s latest flagship devices. However, according to sources in the know, the truck did not have the phones.
[related-post]
Incidentally, the Korean tech giant had announced that the new flagship phone would be manufactured at its Noida plant. “We will start manufacturing both the devices at our Noida facility within a couple of months. These units will be mostly for domestic consumption,” Asim Warsi, VP , Mobile and IT, Samsung India had told IndianExpress.com during the India launch of the phones.
However, it seems the robbers were really close to pulling off the biggest smartphone heist of all times, one that could have delayed Samsung’s launch in one of its largest markets. With pre-booking for the phone open for over a week, the impact would have been quite big.
If the consignment was not the S6, then it seems the gang was just extremely unlucky. Zauba.com, which usually gives a good indication of shipments into India, does not yet show a large Galaxy S6 consignment, the sort you usually see before a launch. Most related shipments are for accessories like smart phone cases for the two models. If Samsung has not yet got their shipments in, it seems the robbers just got their date wrong.
However, for a company as large as Samsung it would be unlikely that they would bring in the consignment of their entire India shipment to one port.
It later turned out that the two trucks, including the one that was hijacked, were carrying “components including integrated circuits, chips and motherboards”. That could have been meant for the assembly of the S6 smartphones in India in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, a Samsung spokesperson said the company “deeply appreciates the efforts of the police and government in this matter”.
