🔗 Share this article A Single Apple Device Directed Law Enforcement to Gang Alleged of Shipping As Many as 40K Snatched UK Handsets to the Far East Authorities announce they have dismantled an global criminal network alleged of smuggling up to 40,000 stolen handsets from the Britain to the Far East over the past year. In what law enforcement labels the UK's largest ever operation against handset robberies, a group of 18 have been detained and more than 2K snatched handsets located. Authorities believe the syndicate could be accountable for exporting up to half of all handsets pilfered in London - a location where the bulk of handsets are taken in the Britain. The Inquiry Initiated by An Individual Handset The inquiry was sparked after a victim tracked a stolen phone the previous year. This took place on the day before Christmas and a person remotely followed their snatched smartphone to a storage facility close to London's major airport, a detective stated. The security there was keen to help out and they located the phone was in a crate, together with another 894 phones. Officers found nearly every one of the devices had been pilfered and in this instance were being shipped to the Asian financial hub. Subsequent deliveries were then seized and officers used forensics on the packages to identify a pair of individuals. Intense Arrests Once authorities targeted the two men, officer-recorded video documented officers, some armed with stun guns, carrying out a high-stakes on-street stop of a vehicle. Within, authorities located handsets covered in metallic wrap - an attempt by offenders to transport snatched handsets without being noticed. The individuals, both individuals from Afghanistan in their mid-adulthood, were charged with working together to receive stolen goods and plotting to conceal or remove stolen merchandise. When they were stopped, multiple handsets were located in their vehicle, and about 2,000 more devices were uncovered at locations associated with them. One more suspect, a twenty-nine-year-old citizen of India, has since been accused with the same offences. Increasing Phone Theft Epidemic The quantity of mobile devices snatched in the city has nearly increased threefold in the last four years, from 28,609 in the year 2020, to eighty thousand five hundred eighty-eight in 2024. 75% of all the mobile devices taken in the United Kingdom are now stolen in the city. Over 20 million people visit the city annually and tourist hotspots such as the shopping area and political hub are frequent for handset theft and theft. A growing demand for used devices, domestically and internationally, is believed to be a key reason for the increase in thefts - and a lot of targets ultimately failing to recover their phones returned. Profitable Criminal Enterprise Reports indicate that some criminals are abandoning drug trafficking and moving on to the phone business because it's more lucrative, an authority figure remarked. If you steal a phone and it's worth hundreds of pounds, you can understand why criminals who are proactive and seek to capitalize on recent criminal trends are adopting that world. Senior officers said the criminal gang deliberately chose Apple products because of their profitability abroad. The inquiry revealed low-level criminals were being rewarded up to three hundred pounds per handset - and police stated snatched handsets are being sold in China for as much as £4,000 per device, given they are connected and more desirable for those trying to bypass restrictions. Law Enforcement Action This represents the biggest operation on device pilfering and theft in the United Kingdom in the most unprecedented collection of initiatives authorities has ever conducted, a top official announced. We've dismantled illegal organizations at every level from petty criminals to global criminal syndicates sending abroad tens of thousands of pilfered phones every year. Numerous targets of device pilfering have been doubtful of authorities - like the city's police - for not doing enough. Frequent complaints entail authorities refusing to cooperate when victims report the exact real-time locations of their snatched handset to the police using location apps or similar tracking services. Individual Story In the past twelve months, an individual had her phone snatched on a major shopping street, in downtown. She explained she now feels uneasy when visiting the capital. It's quite unsettling coming to this location and clearly I'm uncertain who might be nearby. I'm concerned about my purse, I'm concerned about my handset, she explained. I think the police ought to be undertaking far greater - maybe setting up additional security cameras or determining whether there's any way they have some undercover police officers in order to address this problem. I believe because of the quantity of incidents and the figure of individuals contacting with them, they don't have the resources and capability to manage each situation. For its part, the city's law enforcement - which has taken to online networks with numerous clips of officers tackling handset thieves in {recent months|the past few months|the last several weeks