Police seize 1,000 stolen phones in London crackdown on tourist hotspot crime

Officers working undercover to tackle ‘industrial scale’ crime in the West End and Westminster

The moment a phone is snatched by a thief on a bike in London. Photo: Metropolitan Police

A thousand stolen mobile phones have been seized from robbers in London in a week as part of a crackdown on “industrial-scale” thefts that have blighted the UK’s capital.

The Met Police said the seizures follow operations against criminals by plain-clothes officers in hotspot areas such as the West End and Westminster, which are popular with tourists but where nearly 40 per cent of phone thefts occur. Many of the thefts are carried out by criminals on bikes snatching phones as unsuspecting victims leave buildings or walk down the street.

Officers also made 230 arrests of suspected thieves during the operation and the Met promised this would set a “new standard” for how it will deal with the problem of mobile phone thefts.

Commander Owain Richards, who is leading the force's response to phone thefts, admitted the scale of the problem facing his officers.

“We are seeing phone thefts on an industrial scale, fuelled by criminals making millions by being able to easily sell on stolen devices either here or abroad,” he said.

“By intensifying our efforts we’re catching more perpetrators and protecting people from having their phone stolen in the capital.”

Commander Richards said more help was needed from mobile phone manufacturers who he called on to “make stolen phones unusable”.

London police say 69 per cent – or about two in three – of all thefts in the city are related to mobiles and about 185,000 phones were reported stolen last year.

The robbers are described by police as “good cyclists” who often use bikes that have been illegally converted to have a motor more powerful than the 250-watt legal limit. They even wear special sticky gloves so they can snatch the phones at high speed.

Kaya Comer-Schwartz, London’s Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime praised the “hard work of officers” in seizing the phones but said “there is more to do” and echoed Commander Richards’ call for more to be done by the tech companies.

“As the criminal demand for high-value mobile phones continues to grow globally, the Mayor and I are clear that companies must go further and faster to make it harder for stolen phones to be sold on, repurposed and re-used illegally,” Ms Comer-Schwartz said.

“We’ll continue to work with leading mobile phone companies, the Home Secretary and Met leaders to find innovative solutions to end the scourge of mobile phone crime.”

But Neil Garratt, leader of the Conservative group in London's City Hall, said that it was police action, rather than seeking to blame tech companies which yielded results.

“Despite the Mayor's pontificating about the need for tech companies to get involved, and blaming London for having more phones or shops than anywhere else, we now have cold hard proof that action works,” Mr Garratt told The National.

“The Mayor should buck up, see these results as proof of concept, and back more stringent crackdowns by the Met on the phone-snatching marauders rather than businesses, manufacturers, and the public.”

In response to calls for closer collaboration with law enforcement in the UK Google introduced additional features including artificial intelligence and sensors to detect when a thief has grabbed and fled with a user’s Android phone, locking the screen to prevent them from accessing it or any data stored on it.

Analysis of data by The National recently revealed that mobile phone thefts in upmarket areas of London have surged to what has been described as “epidemic level”.

Westminster, home to high-end residential and shopping areas as well as restaurants and tourist attractions in the heart of London, has seen mobile phone thefts increase by 33 per cent in the 12 months to November last year, compared to a year earlier, the police data shows.

The figures also reveal that within the borough of Westminster, which includes Knightsbridge and Belgravia and hosts many embassies, phone thefts surged by 28 per cent.

In Marylebone, where there is a well-established and thriving population from the Middle East based around Edgware Road, 27 per cent more of the devices were stolen in the year to November last year, compared to the same period a year earlier.

Across the river in the borough of Southwark, home to the Tate Modern and Borough Market tourist attractions, mobile thefts rose by 37.5 per cent.

Across London, mobile phone thefts were up 36 per cent in the 12 months ending November last year. There were surges in areas such as Hammersmith and Fulham (48 per cent), Camden (48 per cent), Islington (39 per cent), Hackney (44 per cent), Lewisham (65 per cent) and Brent (79 per cent).

Riyadh Mamouni, Ahmed Belhanafi, Nazih Cheraita and Zakaria Senadjki were jailed in the UK for handling stolen phones and carrying out financial crimes. Courtesy Metropolitan Police

However, when it comes to thefts, Westminster was way ahead of the rest of the city, at 221 per 100,000 of the population. Camden came in second, with 72 mobile phone thefts per 100,000 in the year ending November. Hackney and Islington had about 39 each, Hammersmith reported 11.1, while Brent and Lewisham had 9.7 and 7.7 respectively.

Members of an Algerian gang based in London were sentenced to prison in November after they used more than 5,000 stolen phones to steal thousands of pounds from victims.

Over the course of 18 months, the gang worked with pickpockets and drive-by thieves to steal the phones, which they then used to drain bank accounts, illegally obtain loans or otherwise steal money, with crimes totalling £5.1 million ($6.4 million). Officers believe many of the devices were then sold abroad.

Some victims had thousands of pounds siphoned from their accounts, while others were charged for fraudulent payments for designer clothes.

Zakaria Senadjki, 31, Ahmed Abdelhakim Belhanafi, 25, Nazih Cheraitia, 34, and Riyadh Mamouni, 25, were convicted of various charges, including conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to receive stolen goods. They were given sentences ranging from two years and eight months to eight years in prison.