Police have dismantled an international organized crime gang believed to have smuggled up to 40,000 stolen mobile phones from the UK to China over the past year, worth millions of pounds.In what the Metropolitan Police describe as the UK’s largest operation targeting phone theft, 18 suspects were arrested and more than 2,000 stolen devices recovered.Two Afghan nationals were arrested last month on suspicion of operating a network believed to traffic up to 40% of all iPhones stolen in London. Authorities say the gang was moving devices to China on an “industrial scale,” where the latest models can fetch £3,700 each.“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 are talking about some serious criminality here,” commander Andrew Featherstone was quoted as saying by the Mirror. Police estimate the group could be responsible for exporting as many as half of all stolen phones from London, the city where the majority of UK mobile thefts occur.The investigation was triggered after a victim traced a stolen phone last year.“It was actually on Christmas Eve and a victim electronically tracked their stolen iPhone to a warehouse near Heathrow Airport,” detective inspector Mark Gavin was quoted as saying by the BBC. “The security there was eager to help out and they found the phone was in a box, among another 894 phones.”Officers found that nearly all the phones were stolen and were being shipped to Hong Kong. Additional shipments were intercepted, and forensic analysis of the packages helped identify two suspects.As the investigation zeroed in on the suspects, police bodycam footage captured a dramatic mid-road interception, with some officers drawing Tasers.Dozens of phones were found in the vehicle, many wrapped in foil in an apparent attempt to conceal them, and roughly 2,000 additional devices were recovered from properties linked to the suspects.A third suspect, a 29-year-old Indian national, has also been charged with the same offences.Last week, police arrested an additional 15 individuals on suspicion of theft, handling stolen property, and conspiracy to commit theft.Most of the suspects are women, including a Bulgarian national, and around 30 devices were seized during early morning raids.The number of phones stolen in London has nearly tripled over the past four years, rising from 28,609 in 2020 to 80,588 in 2024. London now accounts for three-quarters of all mobile phone thefts in the UK, as cited by the BBC. “This is, without doubt, the largest operation of its kind in UK history, and it was humbling to see first-hand how the Met are going after the leaders of international smuggling gangs as well as the street robbers and snatchers fueling this industrial scale crime,” Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said.
