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Law enforcement report they have broken up an international criminal network suspected of smuggling up to 40,000 snatched mobile phones from the United Kingdom to China during the previous twelve months.

As part of what London's police force calls the UK's biggest initiative against mobile device theft, 18 suspects have been arrested and more than 2K pilfered phones located.

Authorities suspect the gang could be accountable for sending abroad as much as half of all handsets stolen in London - where most handsets are stolen in the Britain.

The Investigation Initiated by One Phone

The inquiry was triggered after a target located a snatched handset the previous year.

The incident occurred on December 24th and a victim remotely followed their stolen iPhone to a distribution center close to Heathrow Airport, a detective revealed. The security there was willing to assist and they discovered the handset was in a box, among nearly 900 additional handsets.

Officers discovered almost all the phones had been pilfered and in this case were being transported to Hong Kong. Additional consignments were then stopped and authorities used forensics on the parcels to pinpoint a pair of individuals.

High-Stakes Detentions

When the probe focused on the individuals, officer-recorded video captured officers, some armed with stun guns, carrying out a dramatic on-street stop of a vehicle. Within, police located devices encased in aluminum - an attempt by criminals to carry pilfered phones undetected.

The men, each Afghan nationals in their thirties, were indicted with conspiring to receive stolen goods and plotting to disguise or move illegal assets.

During their detention, numerous devices were found in their automobile, and about 2,000 more devices were discovered at locations connected to them. Another individual, a twenty-nine-year-old Indian national, has afterwards been indicted with the identical crimes.

Rising Handset Robbery Epidemic

The number of handsets stolen in the capital has roughly grown by 200% in the last four years, from over 28K in the year 2020, to over 80K in this year. Three-quarters of all the phones pilfered in the UK are now taken in London.

In excess of 20M people come to the city every year and famous landmarks such as the theatre district and government district are frequent for handset theft and pilfering.

A growing desire for second-hand phones, both in the UK and abroad, is suspected to be a significant factor behind the rise in robberies - and numerous victims ultimately failing to recover their devices again.

Lucrative Underground Operation

We're hearing that various perpetrators are abandoning drug trafficking and shifting toward the handset industry because it's higher yielding, a government minister remarked. When a device is taken and it's valued at several hundred, you can understand why perpetrators who are forward-thinking and aim to benefit from recent criminal trends are turning to that world.

Top authorities said the criminal gang specifically targeted devices from Apple because of their profitability abroad.

The probe discovered low-level criminals were being compensated up to 300 GBP per device - and police indicated snatched handsets are being marketed in China for approximately £4,000 per device, since they are online-capable and more appealing for those seeking to evade censorship.

Law Enforcement Action

This marks the most significant effort on handset robbery and snatching in the United Kingdom in the most unprecedented set of operations authorities has ever undertaken, a top official declared. We have broken up underground groups at all levels from petty criminals to international organised crime groups exporting many thousands of snatched handsets every year.

A lot of individuals of phone theft have been critical of law enforcement - like the metropolitan force - for inadequate response.

Frequent complaints include officers failing to assist when victims notify the exact real-time locations of their pilfered device to the police using tracking services or equivalent location tools.

Personal Account

Last year, one victim had her handset stolen on a major shopping street, in the heart of the city. She stated she now feels uneasy when traveling to the metropolis.

It's quite unsettling being here and obviously I'm uncertain who might be nearby. I'm worried about my bag, I'm anxious about my handset, she revealed. I believe law enforcement should be doing a lot more - possibly installing further video monitoring or determining whether there are methods they have plainclothes agents in order to combat this problem. I believe because of the quantity of cases and the quantity of people reaching out with them, they lack the funding and capability to manage all these cases.

In response, the metropolitan police - which has employed social media platforms with various videos of police addressing handset thieves in {recent months|the past few months|the last several weeks