London police London busted the largest mobile phone theft ring in UK history, a sprawling network accused of smuggling up to 40,000 stolen devices from Britain to China over the past year.
The Metropolitan Police said the operation, codenamed Echosteep, has led to 46 arrests, uncovering a pipeline of crime that stretches from London’s streets to international smuggling routes.
According to BBC, the gang was behind as much as 40 per cent of all phones stolen in the capital, where three-quarters of the UK’s mobile thefts now occur.
“This is the largest crackdown on mobile phone theft and robbery in the UK,” said Commander Andrew Featherstone, the Met’s lead officer on the case.
He added that we dismantled criminal networks at every level, from street thieves to international gangs responsible for exporting tens of thousands of stolen devices each year.
CHRISTMAS EVE TIP THAT CRACKED THE CASE
The investigation began almost by accident, on Christmas Eve last year, when a theft victim tracked their stolen iPhone to a warehouse near Heathrow Airport.
“There were nearly 900 more phones in the same box,” recalled Detective Inspector Mark Gavin, who led the probe.
“That single find was the spark for an operation that exposed an international smuggling gang,” he added as quoted by BBC.
Nearly all the phones in that shipment were stolen and bound for Hong Kong, investigators said. Subsequent raids and forensic work on intercepted parcels led officers to several suspects, including two Afghan nationals in their 30s, who were caught with foil-wrapped devices, a trick used to evade tracking signals.
Officers also arrested a 29-year-old Indian national and later uncovered about 2,000 more stolen phones from linked properties. Another suspect was stopped at Heathrow in September carrying ten stolen phones. Police found he had travelled between London and Algeria more than 200 times in two years, according to the BBC.
RAIDS, ROLEXES, AND A TRAIL TO CHINA
As police followed the money trail, the operation widened. In late September, two more men were arrested after officers found 40,000 (42 lakh) in cash and several stolen devices at a phone shop in Islington’s Seven Sisters Road.
The Met said smugglers were specifically targeting Apple products, which can sell for up to $5,000 each in China, where demand for internet-enabled phones is high and stolen devices are often resold after being wiped or repurposed.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan praised the operation as “the largest of its kind in UK history,” saying it was “humbling to see the Met go after not just street thieves but the global ringleaders behind them.”
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