UK police hit criminal gang suspected of smuggling stolen phones to China

7/10/2025 18:41

London police said they have broken up a criminal gang suspected of smuggling 40,000 stolen mobile phones to China in their largest operation against phone theft to date, resulting in 46 arrests over the last two weeks.



The gang could be behind about 40% of all the phone theft in London, police said, which like other global cities has seen a surge in the number of devices stolen in recent years, driven by a lucrative international market and facilitated by fast getaways on e-bikes.



Police said in a statement on Tuesday that the investigation started last year, when a box containing around a thousand iPhones was discovered at a warehouse near London's Heathrow Airport as it was being shipped to Hong Kong.



The group specifically targeted Apple products because of their profitability overseas, police said, discovering they were paid up to 300 pounds ($403.02) per Apple phone, which could be sold for up to $5,000 in China.



"This is the largest crackdown on mobile phone theft and robbery in the UK," police commander Andrew Featherstone said.