Check your mobile handset carefully - it might be one of the tens of thousands stolen in Britain and resold in India.

A police investigation here has revealed that mobile phones stolen in Britain are resold in more than 40 countries. The racket is said to be worth millions of pounds.

The probe conducted by the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit of a sample of 1,000 mobiles stolen in Britain found that they ended up in at least 46 different countries, including India, Iraq, Peru, Australia, Dubai, China and Jamaica.

Gangs use a network of second-hand shops and criminals to collect tens of thousands of mobiles stolen in street muggings and house burglaries. They are then taken abroad and sold.

Unlike in different countries, handsets are relatively cheap in Britain, but call charges are expensive. Outside Britain, the handsets are much more expensive. For example, a stolen video mobile worth 30 pounds to 40 pounds to a criminal in Britain could be worth 200 pounds abroad.

The Independent reported that the police were aware of the smuggling of stolen mobile phones, but it is only now that its dimensions are clearer, thanks to the study.

The National Mobile Phone Crime Unit, which was set up in November 2003, examined details of about 2,000 of the 700,000 mobiles reported stolen every year in Britain.

Just over half had been reported stolen along with their unique identifying code, which allows networks to bar the phone, rendering it useless in Britain. But because British mobiles operate on the GSM frequency, the barred handsets can be used outside Britain with a new SIM card.

The newspaper reported that analysts from the national phone unit contacted foreign networks and asked them to track the more than 1,000 stolen handsets and establish whether they had been used abroad.

The results showed that almost every country tested found that a stolen mobile was being used. This included India, South Africa, Albania, Brazil, the United States and Namibia.

Superintendent Eddie Thomson, head of the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit, told the newspaper: "This study provides a snap shot of what is happening. It is all part of an organised criminal network worth millions of pounds.

"Every town and city will have a retailer which is selling stolen phones, many of which are smuggled out of the country and sold for big profits. Phones abroad are not subsidised.

"In Iraq, for example, a new phone can cost 500 pounds, so a briefcase of stolen mobiles can be worth a lot of money."