The police in Telangana have arrested four persons from the Warangal district for allegedly scamming e-commerce giant Flipkart. They did so by ordering high-end cell phones, replacing them with fake ones and claiming a refund, police told PTI on Tuesday. All four of the accused - identified as Gajjela Srinivasulu Reddy, M D Fazaluddin, J Ashok Kumar and Sayyad Jaleel - belonged to Nellore and are former employees of the e-tail giant. Warangal Police Commissioner G. Sudheer Babu said they had "identified some lacunae in the system."

Elucidating the modus operandi, Babu told PTI that the accused placed orders for high-end mobile phones from the company website under fictitious names and email Ids. After the delivery of the product, they used to call up the customer care saying the handset was not functioning properly or it was damaged and sought refund. Following the complaint, the company refunded the entire amount.

Srinivasulu even posed as a professor of Kakatiya University and asked the Flipkart representatives to collect the damaged/faulty handset. Instead of returning the original one he used to replace it with identical fake handset, the senior officer said.

After noticing that the handsets returned were fake, Flipkart representatives lodged a complaint with KU Police, Warangal. During the course of investigations, Srinivasulu was arrested yesterday and based on the information provided by him, the three others were also held, Babu said.

Police recovered 21 handsets worth Rs 7.10 lakh, Rs 6.50 lakh in cash and one laptop from their possession.