Somebody explain this to me. The arrested men say that they were buying the cellphones for resale. How could that work? It makes no sense. Why would someone buy a cellphone at a mark-up price from one of these guys, when you can easily just walk in to your local Walmart and buy one yourself at a lower price? Who are they claiming to market to?
And why are they taking the phones apart if they're going to re-sell them? One report said they were putting the body of the phone in one box, the battery in another.
I am truly trying to understand how anybody can buy that story. Are authorities perhaps just letting them go so they can watch them?
They buy them at a subsidized price, because Tracfone expects to make money selling you additional minutes. Once purchased you can unlock them to work on any network if you know how. Then you can use them on any GSM network. A comparable phone would cost over $150 if bought without the subsidy. They unlock them. Like the auto repairman says: it's 20¢ for the part, $80 for knowing which part to replace. The markup is for the unlock. The battery can be sold separately for an additional mark-up.
Methinks feign in one direction and go in another.
Taking your question in a different direction: Cell phones do not communicate directly from one to another, their communications have to be relayed from repeater sites. In order to use those sites, the phone has to be activated. In order to activate the phone, it has to be charged. If the intent was to use the phones as trigger devices, how would you get them charged and activated without the chargers and/or batteries.
That would prevent someone from accidentally dialing into it until it was ready to be a detonator. That would also allow for a few 'mistakes' to be made from people calling old recycled phone numbers.
The cell phones are sold at a loss so that the phone companies can make money selling minutes to the buyer. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Similar to selling printers cheaply in order to sell ink and toner refills. (Not that there's anyting wrong with that.)
The guys from Dallas (well known in the area) buy lots of phones (around $30) from WalMart and resell them overseas; they may fetch $100 in Hong Kong (USD or HKD?).
It's all about supply and demand.