How stolen phones are tampered with and sold

Dressed in dhoti and a shirt, with a cotton bag dangling from his shoulders and holy ash smeared across his forehead, 40-year-old Dhanapalan (*name changed) comes across as a religious man. But the look is deceptive for he plies a trade in the grey market. Dhanapalan is an agent in Chennai's Burma Bazaar where his job is to strike deals with mobile snatchers.