The discovery of 1,000 iPhones in a warehouse near London Heathrow Airport has led to the dismantling of a suspected international smuggling gang.
An investigation which began last December has caught street thieves, dealers and handlers including two gang leaders from Afghanistan.
The most recent development came as part of a targeted two-week operation focused on phone theft in London, which led to 46 arrests.
A man was charged with handling stolen goods after he was caught carrying 10 suspected stolen phones at Heathrow. It was discovered the passenger, who was also found with two iPads, two laptops and two Rolex watches, had travelled between London and Algeria more than 200 times in two years.
A gang that robbed courier vans delivering the new iPhone 17 was also apprehended, leading to 11 arrests, while two men were arrested on suspicion of money laundering and handling stolen goods after officers recovered £40,000 ($53,900) in cash at a phone shop in Islington, north London.
Police believe they have now disrupted a major criminal network suspected to have smuggled up to 40,000 stolen phones from the UK to China in the past 12 months – up to 40 per cent of all phones stolen in London.
London has gained a reputation as a hotbed of phone and luxury watch theft, with many residents and visitors in the affluent areas of Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Kensington and Mayfair, plus the West End shopping district falling victim to robbers on e-bikes grabbing their devices from their hands in the street.
Around 80,000 devices were stolen in London last year, police estimate.
Personal robbery has been reduced by 13 per cent and theft is down 14 per cent in London so far this year after the Met began targeted enforcement against criminal gangs.
The Met released footage of several operations, including two thieves being chased through Piccadilly on e-bikes and their arrests at gunpoint. They also shared footage of thieves on bikes snatching phones from people’s hands.
Commander Andrew Featherstone, the Metropolitan Police’s head of tackling phone theft, said: “This is the largest crackdown on mobile phone theft and robbery in the UK in the most extraordinary set of operations of this kind that the Met has ever undertaken.
"We've dismantled criminal networks at every level, from street-level thieves to international organised crime groups exporting tens of thousands of stolen devices each year.”
The Met has now called on tech companies to do more to help stamp out the illegal trade. "We’ve shown how serious we are about tackling this issue, but we need more help from the industry,” said Mr Featherstone. “We’re calling on phone manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung to do more to support us and protect their customers – especially around phone security and re-use.”
Operation Echosteep began when officers discovered almost all the phones found in the Heathrow warehouse, which were being shipped to Hong Kong, were stolen. They were led to the packages while trying to track one particular stolen phone using the 'find my phone' app. Many of the phone sin the boxes were still ringing. Specialist detectives – who would ordinarily investigate armed robberies and drug smuggling – were brought in.
They intercepted further shipments and used forensics found on the packages to track down the Afghan suspects, who were labelled Seagull and Heron.
On September 23, two men in their 30s were arrested in north-east London on suspicion of handling stolen goods. Phones were found in their car and 2,000 more devices at properties to which they were linked. Fifteen more arrests followed.
Det Insp Mark Gavin, senior investigating officer for Operation Echosteep, said: “Finding the original shipment of phones was the starting point for an investigation which uncovered an international smuggling gang which we believe could have been responsible for exporting up to 40 per cent of all the phones stolen in London.
“Behind every one of those phones is a victim. People keep their lives on their phones and it can be heart-breaking when they’re stolen. We heard from people who had lost photos of deceased relatives and others who were violently assaulted during robberies.
“This group specifically targeted Apple products because of their profitability overseas. We discovered street thieves were being paid up to £300 per handset and uncovered evidence of devices being sold for up to $5,000 in China.”
London mayor Sadiq Khan said: “This crackdown has already led to hundreds of arrests and thousands of handsets seized … but the police can’t do it alone. Criminals are making millions by repurposing stolen phones and selling them abroad, with many still able to access cloud services. It’s simply too easy and too profitable. I will continue to call on the mobile phone industry to go harder and faster in designing out this crime by making stolen devices unusable. We need co-ordinated global action to shut down this trade and build a safer London for everyone.”
