Sinister new tactics used by fraudsters to steal phones and access cash, including London thug who stole 28 devices in one day

THIEVES are stealing personal details from banks, credit cards and shopping apps by tricking victims into unlocking their phones, a Sun on Sunday probe has revealed.

This sneaky tactic involves criminals asking unsuspecting strangers for directions to unlock their mobiles to access online maps before the devices are caught.

Fraudsters are also impersonating charity workers, targeting passers-by on the phone and ripping off headphones from festival-goers taking selfies.

The gadgets that grace our high streets have fueled the number of phones infected here with more than half a billion pounds a year.

Davie Ure, chief operating officer at security firm Aurelius Executive Protection, said: “Using a phone in public is becoming increasingly dangerous, particularly in London.

“Three months ago, a family friend went home with his partner in the evening.

“A man approached him asking for directions and at first he tried to get rid of him, but the man was persistent.

“When the victim opened his phone to look at the Google Maps app, the person pulled out a knife and ordered him to transfer tens of thousands of pounds to another bank account.

“Luckily he was able to get the money back from his bank.

According to the Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum (TUFF), 213,500 stolen mobile phones worth more than £50m are offered for sale to UK companies every month.

Sales giant MusicMagpie says the number submitted to them has doubled in the past three years.

In the UK, the process of removing restrictions to use a phone on any network is known as ‘unlocking’.

It’s common and legal and most shops will do this for a fee of around £10.

However, once a unique IMEI number has been reported as stolen, it will be ‘blocked’ so it will no longer be able to work on any UK cellular network.

Clever fraudsters get around this by shipping devices overseas, where foreign companies don’t follow the same strict rules.

The damaged cellphones were traced to countries including China, where they were stripped down for parts and turned into “Frankenstein phones” — devices that look authentic but don’t contain all the original parts — and then sold on the black market.

Experts say the increase in theft is partly due to organized crime gangs from Eastern Europe, which often ship phones out of the country within 24 hours of acquiring them.

Theft prevention specialist Les Gray, TUFF board member, said: “We help legitimate UK companies avoid around £50m of stolen phones every month.

“So if criminals take a phone to, say, CeX, Cash Converters or MusicMagpie, or try to exchange it with Vodafone or EE, they will now fail. But most phones go abroad, where companies don’t have the same code of practice.

“If you take a locked phone to France, it will work perfectly on all French networks.

“It goes through the Netherlands a lot and pops up all over Europe. India, Africa and Nigeria are also hotspots. If you walk through any market in Nigeria, you will find it full of mobile phone sellers and most of them are dubbed from UK. They’re popping up everywhere.”

High-end stolen iPhones sell for between £200 and £600, compared to a retail price of around £1,200.

But device apps are even more valuable to fraudsters and hackers.

According to a study by Intuit Credit Karma, a financial information provider, about 26 percent of consumers now report being scammed when their phone is lost.

“Sold on the dark web”

The average loss from banking, credit cards and shopping apps is £2,711.

This led to a record loss of £45m to mobile banking fraud last year, according to UK Finance, with 20,032 cases recorded in a 12-month period.

A mother said her son’s cellphone was stolen by two knife-wielding thugs.

And “at 8.30am someone hacked into his phone and took out a £25,000 loan from Halifax”.

The unnamed woman added: “The loan was approved and issued by 11am and the money was transferred from my son’s account to someone else’s account.

Some victims reported that their drinks were spiked so thieves could bypass Face ID security features.

Others have been tricked into opening their iPhones by thieves claiming to work for charities or asking for directions.

Les, who is also chief operating officer of security firm Recipero, said: “It’s a big problem.

“If your phone is stolen while you’re on speakerphone or following instructions in the app, and you’re not using full security measures, the phone will unlock.

“The thief then has your phone number, contacts, photos and access to your email. They will harvest this information and may send out phishing messages to make people think it’s you.

“If you’re logged into your banking app, like many of us, it’s entirely possible they’ll have access to it too. It is extremely dangerous and people are open to blackmail.

“You may have exchanged family passwords for text that will eventually be sold on the dark web.”

Phone thefts in England and Wales rose by 20 per cent last year.

At least 316,683 were reported between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2023, according to Freedom of Information requests.

Smartphones are now the most stolen item, ahead of cash and cards, according to a crime survey by the Office for National Statistics.

In fact, in London, which has become Britain’s mobile crime capital, a phone has been picked up every six minutes.

The Met Police recorded 165,933 phone thefts over five years, an average of 2,766 per month.

Compared to 23,559 in Manchester, 13,728 in the West Midlands, 9,367 in Leicestershire, 8,815 in Kent and 8,053 in Lancashire. Wiltshire had the fewest, with just 800 cases recorded.

It emerged this week that Sonny Stringer, 28, from Islington, north London, stole 24 mobile phones in a single morning on March 26 before being knocked off his electric bike and arrested by police.

Sentencing will take place on August 8.

Former tennis pro Annabel Croft, 57, reported that her phone was snatched from her by a thug on a bicycle outside a tube station.

She wrote on Instagram: “Just got mugged waiting for a taxi outside King’s Cross St Pancras. The man was riding a bicycle and wearing a black hood.’

Nationwide, however, more than 99 percent of thefts from a person do not result in a criminal complaint.

Ill-gotten gains

Some criminals go after cell phones and devices with top value slots that don’t match.

Phone thefts have fallen in previous years during the summer, while robbers spend their ill-gotten gains on sunny holiday destinations such as Ibiza.

Andrew Pitt, Head of Fraud and Loss Prevention at MusicMagpie, said: “Our data shows that the number of stolen phones that people have tried to sell to us has increased every year over the last five years and has even doubled in the last five years. three.”

Miloš Dragojevič (40) from Montenegro had his phone stolen while he was attending a conference in London on June 4.

He said: “On the way back to my hotel I came across a street with a view straight down to Big Ben. Instinctively, I pulled my brand new Samsung S24 Ultra, which costs over £1,000, out of my pocket and started taking pictures.

“Out of nowhere, a thief pounced on the e-bike and took it. It happened in a second.

“Once I realized what had happened, I panicked.

“My phone was linked to two bank cards and also to my Microsoft OneDrive account where I store business documents.

“All these thoughts went through my head as I stood in the street while hundreds of people walked by as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t sleep that night.

“Luckily I was able to remotely wipe my phone and lock it before anything else was stolen – but that has put me off visiting London again.”