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Police report they have dismantled an worldwide gang believed of smuggling up to forty thousand snatched cell phones from the Britain to the Far East during the previous twelve months.

In what law enforcement calls the United Kingdom's largest ever operation against mobile device theft, 18 suspects have been arrested and over 2,000 stolen devices found.

Authorities believe the criminal group could be accountable for exporting up to half of all mobile devices taken in the city - in which most mobiles are taken in the Britain.

The Investigation Triggered by One Handset

The inquiry was sparked after a victim tracked a pilfered device in the past twelve months.

It was actually on Christmas Eve and a victim digitally traced their pilfered Apple device to a warehouse in the vicinity of the international hub, a detective explained. The guards there was eager to assist and they discovered the device was in a crate, alongside nearly 900 additional handsets.

Police discovered the vast majority of the phones had been stolen and in this situation were being shipped to the special administrative region. Further shipments were then intercepted and authorities used forensics on the packages to locate a pair of individuals.

High-Stakes Arrests

When the probe focused on the two men, law enforcement recordings showed police, some with Tasers drawn, carrying out a dramatic roadside apprehension of a car. Inside, authorities located handsets encased in aluminum - a method by perpetrators to move snatched handsets without being noticed.

The men, the two Afghan nationals in their mid-adulthood, were accused with working together to handle pilfered items and working together to disguise or move criminal property.

When they were stopped, multiple handsets were discovered in their car, and roughly an additional 2,000 phones were found at locations connected to them. One more suspect, a twenty-nine-year-old person from India, has subsequently been indicted with the identical crimes.

Growing Mobile Device Theft Problem

The figure of handsets stolen in London has nearly increased threefold in the previous 48 months, from twenty-eight thousand six hundred nine in the year 2020, to over 80K in the current year. The majority of all the handsets stolen in the United Kingdom are now taken in the capital.

Over 20 million people travel to the metropolis every year and famous landmarks such as the West End and Westminster are frequent for handset theft and robbery.

An increasing need for second-hand phones, domestically and internationally, is believed to be a major driver underlying the rise in robberies - and many victims end up not retrieving their phones returned.

Profitable Criminal Enterprise

We're hearing that various perpetrators are abandoning drug trafficking and shifting toward the handset industry because it's more profitable, an authority figure stated. When a device is taken and it's valued at several hundred, it's evident why perpetrators who are forward-thinking and seek to capitalize on recent criminal trends are adopting that sector.

Top authorities explained the criminal gang deliberately chose Apple products because of their profitability abroad.

The probe revealed street thieves were being paid as much as 300 GBP per device - and authorities said pilfered phones are being marketed in the Far East for up to four thousand pounds each, because they are connected and more desirable for those trying to bypass restrictions.

Police Response

This is the largest crackdown on mobile phone theft and robbery in the UK in the most extraordinary series of actions law enforcement has ever executed, a high-ranking officer stated. We've dismantled underground groups at every level from petty criminals to worldwide illegal networks shipping tens of thousands of stolen devices every year.

A lot of victims of phone theft have been skeptical of law enforcement - including local law enforcement - for not doing enough.

Common grievances include officers failing to assist when individuals inform about the immediate whereabouts of their pilfered device to the police using tracking services or similar tracking services.

Individual Story

The previous year, a person had her handset pilfered on a central London thoroughfare, in downtown. She told she now feels on edge when visiting the metropolis.

It's really unnerving visiting the area and naturally I'm not sure the people surrounding me. I'm worried about my bag, I'm anxious about my phone, she explained. I think the police ought to be undertaking much more - perhaps establishing additional CCTV surveillance or checking if possibilities exist they've got plainclothes agents just to tackle this challenge. In my opinion owing to the figure of cases and the number of victims contacting with them, they don't have the manpower and ability to manage every incident.

For its part, the metropolitan police - which has utilized social media platforms with various videos of police combating device robbers in {recent months|the past few months|the last several weeks