Thieves snatched his phone in London - he tracked it to China
www.bbc.com
Akara tells the BBC about the journey his phone took after it was snatched from his hands by thieves.

Early on a Saturday morning in April, Akara Etteh was checking his phone as he came out of Holborn tube station, in central London.

A moment later, it was in the hand of a thief on the back of an electric bike - Akara gave chase, but they got away.

He is just one victim of an estimated 78,000 “snatch thefts” in England and Wales in the year to March, a big increase on the previous 12 months. The prosecution rate for this offence is very low - the police say they are targeting the criminals responsible but cannot “arrest their way out of the problem”. They also say manufacturers and tech firms have a bigger role to play.

[…]

Then, in May, just over a month after the theft, Akara checked Find My iPhone again - his prized possession was now on the other side of the world - in Shenzhen, China.

[…]

It is not uncommon for stolen phones to end up in Shenzhen - where if devices can’t be unlocked and used again, they are disassembled for parts.

[…]

In the moments after Akara’s phone was stolen, he saw police officers on the street and he told them what had happened. Officers, he said, were aware of thieves doing a “loop of the area” to steal phones, and he was encouraged to report the offence online, which he did. A few days later, he was told by the Metropolitan Police via email the case was closed as “it is unlikely that we will be able to identify those responsible”.

    • warm@kbin.earth
      0·
      4 months ago

      To be fair, what are they supposed to do? The phone will be handed off a bunch of times within hours of it being stolen. You are not getting your phone back unless the thieves are caught in the act.

      • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        In a world of home surveillance, doorbell cameras, and phones with constant GPS that can tell you the exact location of where it’s at, the police are more useless than ever.

        • warm@kbin.earth
          0·
          4 months ago

          With infinite budget sure, worth a shot, but it would cost a lot more than the price of the phone to track it down.

          Realistically speaking, there isn’t enough personel or funds, so it isn’t worth attempting to chase the phone down. These phones move fast through fences, they aren’t just taken to one address and left there. The criminals could and probably do have ‘faraday bags’ to block signals from phones as they move them, only ever taken out to sell them along.

          All the police can do is record any data they do get and compile it into a larger investigation with the hopes of attacking the head of the snake (but what even is that?).

          • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            1·
            3 months ago

            With infinite budget sure, worth a shot, but it would cost a lot more than the price of the phone to track it down.

            Infinite budget? Bro, I know the exact location. Just go over there and knock on his door. Arrest the man and put him in jail for possession. One less thief out there taking advantage of the fact that the police doesn’t enforce the fucking laws.

            The criminals could and probably do have ‘faraday bags’ to block signals from phones as they move them, only ever taken out to sell them along.

            They could, but they don’t.

        • warm@kbin.earth
          0·
          4 months ago

          Who is to say it was at an address and not just sold/handed off in the street? They don’t just take the phones to a house and pile them up, they will be sold on through fences rapidly and if they can’t reset them to resell to someone, they get sold for parts (hence why this one ended up in China).