Nine phones AN HOUR were reported stolen in Sadiq Khan's London last year costing £50million... with more than half of devices ending up in Algeria and China

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

Around 80,000 smartphones were reported stolen in London last year - a staggering nine an hour - at a cost of £50million, top police officers told MPs today.
As they outlined the 'organised criminal enterprise' they were grappling with, senior Scotland Yard bosses admitted there was a 'growing and very serious problem'.
They revealed how three-quarters of stolen devices in the capital are sent abroad, with vast numbers ending up in both Algeria and China.
Appearing before a House of Commons committee, the Metropolitan Police officers said the black market for smartphones was driving rates of theft, robbery and knife crime.
It was even seeing those criminals who were once involved in drug crime pivoting towards smartphone theft and robbery as an alternative means of illicit income.
The officers warned that gangs of teenagers on bikes were committing 10 to 20 thefts at a time in some parts of London.
Their stark admission about the extent of the problem will pile fresh pressure on London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, who is responsible for policing in the capital.
The Labour politician - who has also recently been challenged over fare-dodgers on the London Underground - previously said he was 'determined to eliminate the scourge of mobile phone theft'.
Speaking to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee this morning, Darren Scates - the Met Police's chief digital, data and technology officer - set out the scale of the problem.
'This is an organised criminal enterprise that we're dealing with, it's an international enterprise although... it is particularly acute in London,' he told MPs.
'We do see those similar numbers in Madrid, Paris, Barcelona - certainly on a per capita basis they suffer very similarly to London.
'In London, in 2024, unfortunately about 80,000 smartphones were reported as stolen.
'That compares to 2023 when the number was 64,000, so we have a growing and very serious problem that we're dealing with.
'Stolen devices are changing hands on the streets for between £300-400.'
He told MPs that 80 per cent of devices that are reported stolen to the Met Police are Apple devices.
'So we believe they are probably being targeted for their value and/or there is a greater incentive maybe to report an Apple device as stolen, because they tend to be a high-value item,' he added.
'We have done some research into what happens to these devices, as you would expect. What we find is about 75 per cent of them, we believe, are actually moved abroad.
'The prime locations at the moment - and this will vary I'm sure - will be Algeria and China/Hong Kong. About 28 per cent go to each of those two locations.'
James Conway, the Met Police's lead on phone theft, said the scale of phone theft in London last year had a street value of around £20million.
But the replacement value of stolen phones for members of the public and insurance companies was estimated at £50million last year.
'Around half of the robberies in London are mobile phone-related...so it's driving our robbery problem,' he added.
'Around two-thirds of our thefts in London relate to mobile phones, so this is also driving our theft problem.
'But then, if you take a step deeper, 65 to 70 per cent of our knife crime is produced by our robbery problem.
'So this is also driving a significant chunk of our violence challenge in London and across the UK.'
DCS Conway said Scotland Yard and other large metropolitan forces had placed a 'sharp focus' on phone theft for a couple of years.
'In recent months we have seen a decline,' he continued.
'In the first couple of months of this financial year [there has been] around a 50 per cent reduction in theft.
'And around a 13 per cent reduction in robbery when we compare to the opening months of the previous financial year.'
He also described how the capital's criminal gangs had moved towards phone theft in recent years.
'In my previous role I led for policing in Hackney and Tower Hamlets,' DCS Conway told the committee.
'And we would regularly see criminal gangs who maybe a few years ago would have been involved in drug dealing almost exclusively pivot back into mobile phone theft and robbery.
'Teenagers on bikes riding down the A10 corridor committing 10-20 robberies or thefts on the go, packaging those phones very swiftly into silver foil or to Faraday bags to make it more difficult for us to identify their ultimate location.
'And then swifly passing them on to a middle market handler and ultimately the transport out of the UK.'