We occasionally hear good news where someone manages to use the Find My iPhone feature to locate a stolen device and successfully recover it, but a new record has been set when tracking a single iPhone led to a gang suspected of trafficking up to 40,000 stolen phones in China.
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The iPhone was discovered in an airport warehouse where it was found in a box with 894 other phones, leading to the arrest of 18 suspects and the recovery of more than 2,000 phones.
Police say they have dismantled an international gang suspected of smuggling up to 40,000 stolen mobile phones from the UK to China in the past year. In what the Metropolitan Police describes as the UK's biggest ever anti-phone theft operation, 18 suspects have been arrested and more than 2,000 stolen devices have been recovered. Police believe the gang could be responsible for exporting up to half of the phones stolen in London, where most mobile phones are stolen in the UK.
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The story began when an iPhone was stolen and the victim found it in a warehouse near London's Heathrow Airport. Police initially asked the site's security team to check the location, where the device was found in a box with 894 other phones. This led to the interception of other shipments to the same address, and police were able to collect DNA from the packages and identify two suspects. It is likely that police then used a mix of known associates and undercover surveillance to target other properties; they raided 28 addresses, where 2,000 devices were found.
Senior officers said the criminal gang specifically targeted Apple products because of their profitability overseas. The Metropolitan Police investigation found that thieves were paid up to £300 per device and the force said the stolen devices are being sold in China for up to £4,000 each, given that they are internet-connected and more attractive to those trying to bypass censorship.
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Thieves often manage to steal unlocked devices by grabbing them on the street while people are using them. Apple has added a number of theft protection features over the years, such as Activation Lock and Stolen Device Protection. It's not immediately clear how the gang got around these protections, but one possibility is that they keep the phones permanently activated and unlocked. That would work in this case, since the value here is a foreign device that isn't locked down in the same way as local devices, despite being able to work with the user's Apple ID.
