A top detective has revealed that despite ultra-modern tracking technology allowing people to see where the thieves who stole their phones have taken them, police are often unable to recover valuables.
The scourge of phone theft in British cities has come to the fore in recent months thanks to numerous videos showing criminals taking devices from unsuspecting members of the public as they go about their daily lives.
In addition to the inconvenience and potential financial impact of losing phones, the crime wave has seen victims lose items of great sentimental value and have to pay for new devices.
For many, the most frustrating aspect of these brazen thefts is the struggle to get their phones back before they are sold on the black market in the UK or as far away as China.
With the growing popularity of tracking apps that allow people to narrow down the location of their phones to individual street corners, it’s now easy to find out where your device is once picked up by a lawless subset of society.
Click here to resize this module
However, despite having the technology to obtain the location of the devices, the police are often powerless to retrieve them, according to one top police officer.
Inspector Dan Green, who leads the London police’s theft and phone theft team, says the usefulness of apps like “Find My” can only go so far.
He told The Sunday Times: “We realize it is frustrating for victims who want us to turn up and break down the door because their phone is ringing at an address. But it’s not that simple.’
Click here to resize this module
Insp. Green said it wouldn’t be worth sending officers to some of those locations because the phone would be moved to a private address by the time they arrived, while others could be out of the force’s area for several hours.
He said it also required manpower to go to these locations, with at least four officers needed each time because phone hijackers are “often involved in other types of serious organized crime”.
He added that on occasion they found “multiple stolen property, drugs, large amounts of cash and weapons including large zombie-style knives”.
Insp. Green also said that while tracking apps can provide location, sometimes they aren’t accurate enough to prove really useful.
He said: “Find My can show that the iPhone is in a block of flats, but it doesn’t show you anything on the vertical axis and the building can be ten stories high. So we have to decide whether to knock on every apartment on the block.’
The detective added that this doesn’t mean locator software is never useful – he said it can be used in conjunction with other information, such as intelligence that a known burglar lives there, to provide the basis for a search.
However, if a suspect refuses them entry, police sometimes have to obtain a court order to enter, another process that takes time and requires detailed information to satisfy the courts to grant access. The location from the “Find My” app is sometimes not enough for this.
Insp. Green added that officers can sometimes force entry onto property, but only to make an arrest and after they have reasonable grounds to believe a suspect is inside.
He said: “So we get to these addresses but we can’t do every one. After all, we deploy officers whenever possible and get great results.”
Earlier this month, the force released footage showing police arresting Sonny Stringer, one of London’s most prolific phone thieves, as he sped through the capital on an e-bike.
Click here to resize this module
The 28-year-old was raided by officers and found with 24 mobile phones worth £20,000 – stolen in just one hour.
He later pleaded guilty to ten charges of theft, dangerous driving and no insurance at Isleworth Crown Court in west London.
In August, he will be sentenced to the maximum rate of seven years in prison for theft.
But that will be of little consolation to some victims of the ongoing crime wave who have seen their phones brutally ripped from their hands.
Among them is Emma Hall, whose mobile was stolen by a ‘gang of youths on bikes’ in east London in April this year.
The 44-year-old managed to track it down to two locations in north London before the ‘Find my iPhone’ app showed it had been shipped to China.
She told MailOnline: ‘He headed to north London at two different addresses and three weeks later turned up in Shenzhen, China.
“I imagined it was sold there, but I was a bit obsessed with it because everyone was telling me stories about their phones being stolen and turning up in places like Egypt and Marrakech.
“It was a concern at first because my phone was unlocked when it was taken. They can’t access everything because of face ID, but they could get into my photos, they could look at my text messages, and that freaked me out a little.
“I went home and immediately wiped my phone.
Shenzhen has been referred to as China’s “Silicon Valley” for the number of competing electronics businesses.
Emma said phone theft was now an “everyday occurrence” in neighborhoods around Stratford, particularly near the Olympic Park, Victoria Palace and Stratford International Station.
“My friend had the exact same thing happen and broke his wrist because he was holding the phone. Now they had to put metal plates in his wrists,” she said.
“Something needs to be sorted because people shouldn’t be afraid to go out in public with their phones. Alerts are now all over social media with people saying “they just spotted this kid” – and some are starting to film them.
Figures show a mobile phone is reported stolen in London every six minutes.
Almost 52,000 devices were stolen in the capital last year as criminals use violence and distraction techniques to target victims.
The worst-hit borough was the city of Westminster, where tourists flock for theater shows and luxury shopping, with 18,863 reported incidents in the year to December – up 47 per cent on 12,836 in the previous 12 months.
Camden was the second worst affected with 4,806 incidents, followed by Southwark (4,376), Hackney (2,761), Newham (2,585), Lambeth (2,394) and Islington (2,117). In London as a whole, more than 52,000 phones were stolen last year.
Maria-Diandre Opre, cyber security expert at Earthweb, previously told MailOnline: ‘Time and time again I have analyzed cases where stolen phones have reappeared thousands of kilometers away, particularly in countries like China.
“This is not a mere coincidence, but a deliberate ploy by criminals to exploit cross-border law enforcement vulnerabilities.
“For smartphone thieves, one of the biggest attractions of trading stolen devices abroad is the reduced risk of detection. Some countries simply lack the strong legal framework and monitoring capabilities to effectively police these crimes. This allows gangs to unload their ill-gotten goods with little fear of repercussions.
“Some regions have well-established black markets dedicated to dismantling, reprogramming and reselling stolen phones.
“These underground operatives have specialized expertise to bypass security restrictions and wipe devices with their digital fingerprints before flipping them for profit. Their complex networks make tracking stolen supplies a huge challenge.”