A young Pakistani shop assistant with a wispy beard and a ‘Beverly Hills’ sweatshirt inspects the device that has just been handed to him over the counter.
His eyes widen as he reads the message displayed on the home screen: ‘This phone has been stolen. Please return.’
It couldn’t be more obvious. ‘Oh, you stole this one?’ he asks, with a wry grin.
The man he is speaking to is a total stranger, who has just walked into his second-hand electronics store in Ilford, east London, and asked simply: ‘Do you buy phones?’ before handing him what appears to be a pilfered handset.
Minutes later, after a brief discussion over what the device is worth, the apparent thief is offered £20 for his wares.
It matters not that it seems to be stolen.
Sadly, this sordid transaction is happening on an unprecedented scale up and down the country.
Except on this occasion, the man selling the device is not in fact a thief but a Mail on Sunday reporter posing as a phone snatcher.
Britons everywhere are being terrorised by moped gangs swiping their phones at will, with more than 116,000 stolen in London alone last year – equivalent to 320 every day
Britons everywhere are being terrorised by moped gangs and pickpockets swiping their phones at will, with more than 116,000 stolen in London alone last year – equivalent to 320 every day.
Some 80 per cent of devices stolen in the capital end up abroad, in countries such as Algeria and China. But today, our undercover investigation reveals a thriving domestic market, with seemingly respectable high-street retailers buying pilfered handsets from brazen thieves.
Shocking footage, filmed with a hidden camera, shows:
- Phone repair shops handing over stacks of cash to our undercover reporter in exchange for what they believe to be stolen phones;
- One store admitting that they often had criminals coming into their shop with stolen devices, which they bought in bulk even though they knew it was illegal;
- A shop assistant encouraging our reporter to steal one of the latest Samsung models, as these could be unlocked and sold at a higher price.
In many cases, phones that can’t be unlocked are destined to be stripped for their batteries and glass screens – the only reusable parts – and these will be used in the UK to ‘refurbish’ handsets that need repair, handed in by unsuspecting owners.
Last night, in response to the findings, MPs accused the shameless shopkeepers of enabling a rampant crimewave, while the Metropolitan Police condemned ‘unscrupulous shop owners who are willing to deal knowingly in these stolen goods’.
The MoS’s undercover reporter found two shops on Ilford Lane that offered to buy used iPhone 13s, which we had altered using Apple’s FindMyapp so that the home screen displayed a message saying that they had been stolen
Conservative home affairs spokesperson Alicia Kearns said: ‘Phone snatching is a cowardly crime. All credit to the Mail on Sunday for exposing these shop owners, whose personal greed fuels those committing the thefts.’
The Daily Mail revealed in July that county lines gangs have turned to snatching phones alongside dealing drugs due to booming demand and softer sentences for those who are caught.
Gang leaders are grooming young foot soldiers to steal phones, often using specially adapted e-bikes that can reach 70mph.
Our probe set out to investigate the next step in the supply chain – the middlemen fuelling this criminal epidemic.
To do so, we sent an undercover reporter to Ilford Lane, east London, after receiving a tip-off that the area was a hotbed for the illicit trade. This chaotic street is littered with electronics stores and second-hand shops in just under a mile.
A short trawl through social media reveals various reports of people having their phones stolen from central London before ending up here.
One journalist from the Evening Standard said her iPhone was snatched from her pocket on Charing Cross Road before its tracking app showed that it had been taken to Ilford just a few hours later.
We soon found two shops on Ilford Lane that offered to buy our used iPhone 13s, which we had altered using Apple’s FindMyapp so that the home screen displayed a message saying that they had been stolen.
The phones were locked, so the staff said they could not be resold – only stripped for parts.
At the first store, Unitech, an Indian worker appeared cautious upon seeing that the iPhone had been reported as stolen.
A shop worker at Unitech appeared cautious upon seeing that the iPhone had been reported as stolen. He encouraged our reporter to return the device to the owner, or call the police. Ultimately, however, he said he would pay £10 for the device…
When our reporter returned to the store two days later, the same worker said that he may be able to make a deal if we could bring him a batch of ten phones
He encouraged our reporter to return the device to the owner, or call the police, but added that this option would ‘make trouble’.
Ultimately, however, he said he would pay £10 for the device.
When our reporter returned to the store two days later, the same worker said that he may be able to make a deal if we could bring him a batch of ten phones.
The second store, Amader World, had no hesitations.
Upon inspecting the device, a young shop assistant named Haider, from Lahore, Pakistan, smiled as he asked our reporter: ‘Oh, you stole this one?’
He offered £20 for the phone, adding: ‘We can only sell this for spare parts like the screen and battery… No one can get it unlocked. No one can do it. It is blocked by Apple.’
On a second visit to the shop, our undercover reporter again offered further business and enquired if he could get a better price for more recent models.
Haider broke into a laugh as he replied: ‘I think you have good connections with the robbers.’
Haider explained that he could pay £40 for a locked iPhone 16 – the latest model – but encouraged the MoS journalist to steal one of the latest Samsung phones.
‘Those ones we can unlock. You can sell for good money,’ he said.
He gave a wry smile and nodded when our reporter asked if he had many ‘lads like me’ coming to the shop.
Haider said that thieves would sometimes come in with just one phone, but often ‘four or five’. But his manager, a man named Ahmed, from Bangladesh, warned that it was ‘dangerous work’.
He told how a phone thief had recently been stabbed to death at a shopping centre in Stratford after coming out of a phone shop loaded with cash from his latest sale.
‘We’re a new store and we need the parts,’ Ahmed said, speaking in Urdu. ‘That’s why we buy them. It is illegal to buy them.’
Our investigation reveals a thriving domestic market, with seemingly respectable high-street retailers buying pilfered handsets from brazen thieves
We sold three iPhone 13s to Amader World at £20 each, and one to Unitech for £10. If unlocked, the devices are worth about £200. Police say thieves can pocket up to £400 for a top model like an iPhone 16 Pro Max, which retails new at around £1,000.
But this is only if the criminals can unlock it, which depends on whether they can snatch the phone from a victim’s hands before it is locked, or if a hacker can breach its security.
Amader World did not explain why this was possible with a Samsung phone, but not an iPhone.
Foreign resellers will often use local ‘hackers for hire’ for around £40 a phone, but many at home and abroad may deploy more rudimentary methods.
‘Phishing’ attempts, in which victims are duped into parting with passwords and other sensitive data, are common, while death threats to the original owner are often reported to police.
When the MoS confronted Amader World with its evidence, its manager initially denied having previously bought stolen phones. But when shown a transcript of the conversation, Ahmed said: ‘OK, we don’t buy next time. If they are stolen, we don’t buy any phone.’
When the MoS returned to Unitech, a different shop assistant was on duty. He said he properly checked all phones before purchasing and refused to buy stolen handsets, but didn’t know why his colleague had done so.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: ‘It is despicable that shops are knowingly buying stolen phones. This is fuelling the epidemic of phone theft that has been unleashed in London under Sadiq Khan.
At Amader World, a young shop assistant offered our reporter £20 for a stolen phone, saying: ‘We can only sell this for spare parts like the screen and battery… No one can get it unlocked. No one can do it. It is blocked by Apple’
‘Shops buying phones are handling stolen goods and should be ruthlessly prosecuted.’
Police chiefs are calling on cloud providers Apple and Google to install a ‘kill switch’ that would effectively render phones useless when reported stolen.
It is argued that this could cut demand overnight as the phone would hold little value.
The Mail on Sunday’s investigation shows there is still a market for locked devices, albeit a less profitable one involving stripping phones for parts.
Amader World explained that they could either use parts from locked phones to repair others that were brought into the store, or sell them directly to UK firms that specialise in refurbishing devices.
These legitimate companies will likely have no idea that they are buying parts from stolen handsets, nor will the customers who then purchase their refurbished phone.
In other cases, stolen devices will be passed on to handlers who package them for export to an international hub, where they are sold in bulk.
Just under a third of phones stolen in London are sent to Algeria, while 20 per cent end up in China.
The Daily Mail previously tracked a phone snatched from an estate agent in Baker Street, central London, to a high-rise block in Hong Kong, where it ended up alongside hundreds of thousands of other handsets.
Phone thefts are estimated to cost Brits at least £67million a year. London is the epicentre, with 75 per cent of phone thefts, but the problem is nationwide, with every major police force recording thousands of stolen phones every year.
Conservative home affairs spokesperson Alicia Kearns says: ‘Phone snatching is a cowardly crime. All credit to the Mail on Sunday for exposing these shop owners, whose personal greed fuels those committing the thefts’
In recent years, police have raided phone shops in Manchester and Birmingham, seizing hundreds of stolen devices and tens of thousands of pounds.
Even rural areas such as Suffolk, Lincolnshire and Gloucestershire cannot escape the problem.
A Met spokesman said: ‘Criminal gangs are driving phone theft in London, shipping many overseas, with this criminality also fuelled by unscrupulous shop owners who are willing to deal knowingly in these stolen goods.
‘We’re doing more than ever to tackle the issue, including an intensified period of action over summer, targeted patrols, plain-clothed operations in hotspot areas and improved use of phone-tracking data and intelligence.
‘This is starting to have an impact, with incidents involving theft from a person down by 16 per cent and personal robbery down by 13 per cent compared to the same period last year.’
A spokesman for Google, which provides the operating system for Android phones, including Samsung, said it has ‘invested in advanced theft protection features, including the industry’s first theft detection lock and offline device lock, to help prevent theft and block stolen devices’.
A Samsung spokesman said the company had ‘industry-leading security features’ that ‘render phones unusable if stolen’.
He added: ‘We recognise how distressing phone theft can be and are working closely with the Home Office and industry partners to combat this complex issue.’
Apple says it has been ‘working on this issue… for more than the last decade’ and has made ‘significant investments’ in theft-prevention tools.
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