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Law enforcement announce they have dismantled an international criminal network alleged of moving approximately 40K stolen mobile phones from the Britain to China in the last year.

In what the Metropolitan Police describes as the UK's largest ever operation against handset robberies, a group of 18 have been arrested and in excess of 2K snatched handsets found.

Police believe the criminal group could be responsible for exporting as much as 50% of all handsets pilfered in the city - a location where the bulk of phones are taken in the UK.

The Investigation Sparked by An Individual Phone

The probe was triggered after a target located a stolen phone last year.

This took place on the day before Christmas and a individual digitally traced their stolen iPhone to a distribution center close to the international hub, a detective revealed. The security there was eager to help out and they found the device was in a container, alongside 894 other devices.

Police found almost all the devices had been pilfered and in this case were being sent to the special administrative region. Subsequent deliveries were then intercepted and authorities used scientific analysis on the parcels to identify two men.

Dramatic Arrests

Once authorities targeted the individuals, police bodycam footage documented officers, some with Tasers drawn, conducting a intense mid-road interception of a automobile. Inside, officers located phones wrapped in foil - a strategy by criminals to move pilfered phones undetected.

The men, both individuals from Afghanistan in their thirties, were accused with working together to receive stolen goods and working together to hide or transfer criminal property.

During their detention, dozens of phones were located in their car, and approximately another two thousand handsets were discovered at properties linked to them. A third man, a twenty-nine-year-old citizen of India, has afterwards been accused with the identical crimes.

Rising Mobile Device Theft Epidemic

The quantity of handsets snatched in the capital has roughly grown by 200% in the last four years, from over 28K in two years ago, to eighty thousand five hundred eighty-eight in the current year. 75% of all the phones pilfered in the United Kingdom are now stolen in the capital.

Over twenty million people come to the city every year and popular visitor areas such as the theatre district and government district are frequent for handset theft and theft.

A growing demand for used devices, domestically and internationally, is thought to be a major driver for the rise in pilfering - and numerous victims ultimately not retrieving their devices returned.

Profitable Criminal Enterprise

Authorities note that certain offenders are abandoning drug trafficking and moving on to the handset industry because it's more profitable, an authority figure commented. When a device is taken and it's worth hundreds of pounds, it's clear why criminals who are one step ahead and aim to benefit from recent criminal trends are moving toward that sector.

Top authorities explained the illegal network specifically targeted iPhones because of their profitability internationally.

The inquiry revealed low-level criminals were being compensated as much as 300 GBP per handset - and police said pilfered phones are being sold in Mainland China for approximately four thousand pounds each, since they are internet-enabled and more appealing for those seeking to evade censorship.

Law Enforcement Action

This marks the most significant effort on mobile phone theft and snatching in the UK in the most remarkable set of operations authorities has ever undertaken, a senior commander announced. We have broken up illegal organizations at each tier from street-level thieves to global criminal syndicates shipping numerous of pilfered phones annually.

Numerous victims of device pilfering have been critical of authorities - including the city's police - for not doing enough.

Common grievances include officers failing to assist when targets report the immediate whereabouts of their pilfered device to the law enforcement using tracking services or comparable monitoring systems.

Personal Account

In the past twelve months, one victim had her device stolen on a central London thoroughfare, in downtown. She stated she now feels on edge when visiting the city.

It's quite unsettling coming to this location and clearly I don't know who is around me. I'm anxious about my bag, I'm concerned about my phone, she revealed. In my opinion the police could be implementing much more - possibly setting up some more video monitoring or determining whether there are methods they have plainclothes agents in order to combat this issue. In my opinion because of the number of cases and the number of individuals contacting with them, they lack the funding and capacity to handle every incident.

Regarding their position, the city's law enforcement - which has employed digital channels with multiple recordings of police combating device robbers in {recent months|the past few months|the last several weeks