Police arrest man for ordering brand new iPhone online and then killing delivery worker

Customer had selected the option to pay cash on delivery for the £1,350 phone, police say

File: People queue outside the Apple retail store on the day of its launch in Mumbai, India (EPA)

A 30-year-old man was killed while delivering the latest Apple iPhone to two people who were supposed to pay for it in cash in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, police said.

Bharat Sahu, the delivery agent for online e-commerce portal Flipkart, was reported missing by his family two days after he failed to return home.

Shashank Singh, a senior police official said that the accused, a resident of Chinhat in Lucknow, had placed an order for an Apple iPhone valued at approximately Rs 150,000 (£1,350) from Flipkart, choosing the cash-on-delivery (COD) payment option.

The accused was identified as Gajanan by the local police. When Sahu arrived to deliver the phone to the accused’s home, Gajanan and his accomplice strangled him, put his body in a sack, and disposed of it in a canal, police said.

“On 23 September delivery boy, Bharat Sahu of Nishatganj, went to deliver the phone at his place where he was killed by Gajanan and his accomplice,” Mr Singh told the media.

“After strangulating Sahu, they put his body in a sack and disposed of it in the Indira Canal.” The search for Sahu’s body is still ongoing.

While reviewing Sahu’s call records and attempting to track his location, the police discovered Gajanan’s phone number, which led them to his associate, identified by his first name Akash, according to news agency Press Trust of India.

During interrogation, Akash confessed to the crime, Mr Singh said, without specifying the motive behind the murder.

Apple opened its first flagship stores in India in Mumbai and Delhi in 2023. The company’s annual sales in India surged by 33 per cent to nearly $8bn, despite iPhones, like the iPhone 15, being priced at nearly three times the country’s median monthly wage.

India still represents just two per cent of Apple’s global sales, and Android dominates over 80 per cent of the market.

Earlier in September when iPhone 16 was launched, devoted Indian Apple fans were already gathered outside the stores, with some having camped out overnight.

Ujjwal Shah, a passionate Apple fan, was among the first in line in Mumbai, waiting over 21 hours to be the store’s first customer. “The energy in Mumbai for this phone is unbelievable,” Mr Shah was quoted as saying by ANI.