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Police state they have dismantled an international gang alleged of illegally transporting as many as 40,000 stolen handsets from the Britain to the Far East over the past year.

In what the Metropolitan Police calls the UK's largest ever campaign against phone thefts, a group of 18 have been taken into custody and more than 2K stolen devices located.

Authorities believe the syndicate could be responsible for exporting up to 50% of all mobile devices stolen in London - where the bulk of handsets are stolen in the UK.

The Probe Sparked by A Single Device

The probe was sparked after a victim located a pilfered device the previous year.

The incident occurred on December 24th and a person electronically tracked their pilfered Apple device to a distribution center close to Heathrow Airport, a detective stated. The security there was willing to cooperate and they located the phone was in a crate, together with another 894 phones.

Law enforcement found the vast majority of the handsets had been stolen and in this instance were being transported to Hong Kong. Additional consignments were then stopped and officers used scientific analysis on the boxes to identify a pair of individuals.

High-Stakes Detentions

Once authorities targeted the individuals, officer-recorded video documented law enforcement, some armed with stun guns, executing a high-stakes mid-road interception of a car. Within, authorities located handsets encased in aluminum - a method by criminals to carry snatched handsets undetected.

The men, each individuals from Afghanistan in their 30s, were charged with plotting to receive stolen goods and plotting to hide or transfer criminal property.

During their detention, numerous devices were found in their automobile, and roughly an additional 2,000 phones were uncovered at addresses connected to them. Another individual, a twenty-nine-year-old person from India, has afterwards been accused with the same offences.

Rising Mobile Device Theft Problem

The number of phones snatched in London has almost tripled in the past four years, from twenty-eight thousand six hundred nine in two years ago, to 80,588 in the current year. The majority of all the handsets pilfered in the UK are now stolen in the city.

Over 20M people travel to the metropolis every year and famous landmarks such as the theatre district and government district are prolific for handset theft and robbery.

A rising need for second-hand phones, both in the UK and abroad, is thought to be a major driver behind the surge in pilfering - and many targets end up never getting their phones again.

Lucrative Criminal Enterprise

We're hearing that various perpetrators are ceasing narcotics trade and shifting toward the phone business because it's more lucrative, a policing official commented. When a device is taken and it's priced in the hundreds, it's clear why criminals who are one step ahead and aim to benefit from emerging illegal activities are moving toward that sector.

Top authorities explained the criminal gang particularly focused on Apple products because of their monetary value internationally.

The probe discovered petty offenders were being compensated as much as £300 per phone - and officials indicated pilfered phones are being marketed in China for as much as £4,000 each, because they are connected and more desirable for those trying to bypass censorship.

Law Enforcement Action

This marks the most significant effort on device pilfering and robbery in the Britain in the most remarkable set of operations the police force has ever executed, a high-ranking officer declared. We have broken up underground groups at every level from street-level thieves to international organised crime groups shipping many thousands of pilfered phones annually.

Numerous targets of phone theft have been skeptical of police - including the city's police - for not doing enough.

Common grievances entail police not helping when victims notify the exact real-time locations of their pilfered device to the law enforcement using tracking services or comparable monitoring systems.

Individual Story

In the past twelve months, one victim had her phone stolen on Oxford Street, in central London. She told she now feels anxious when traveling to the city.

It's really unnerving coming to this location and obviously I don't know who is around me. I'm concerned about my bag, I'm concerned about my phone, she explained. In my opinion law enforcement should be doing a lot more - possibly installing additional video monitoring or determining whether there are methods they've got plainclothes agents in order to combat this issue. I think because of the number of occurrences and the quantity of people getting in touch with them, they are short on the manpower and ability to handle all these cases.

In response, the metropolitan police - which has utilized social media platforms with various videos of police addressing handset thieves in {recent months|the past few months|the last several weeks