iPhone thefts fall sharply in London as police hail ‘kill switch’

 
Kill switch: the black market value of stolen iPhones has plummeted thanks to new Apple technology
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The number of iPhones being stolen in London has fallen dramatically, new figures reveal.

About 105 iPhones are still stolen every day in the capital but nine months ago the figure was 144.

Police say the decline is largely down to Apple introducing a “kill switch” to its phone software last September, leading to a big reduction in black market demand for the devices.

Overall, phone snatches and thefts have fallen by more than 25 per cent in the past 12 months and robberies targeting phones are down by 28 per cent.

Two years ago, Scotland Yard said phones were being stolen at a record rate of 301 every day in London. The latest figure is 201 a day.

At the height of the crimewave more than 1,000 phones were snatched in Westminster in December 2012.

Senior officers launched an intelligence-gathering operation and found that organised crime groups were using gangs of thieves to steal phones on an industrial scale across Europe.

Commander Christine Jones said it was “truly international foreign offending. It was very focused, well briefed, people were told you go in, you remove that number of phones and you go.”

Rock concerts were being targeted for mass thefts of phones. “The thieves would be in Brighton on a Saturday morning and in Perthshire the next day for another concert. They would follow the same band,” Ms Jones said.

Stolen phones, mainly iPhones, would be quickly moved to the Far East and Africa where they could be sold for £250 and reactivated. Since Apple brought in the “kill switch” the black market value of an iPhone 5 has fallen to about £60. Ms Jones said: “Apple has come up with a solution that means if a phone is stolen it is inoperable across the whole of the globe.”

The Met’s Operation Ringtone involved using spotters, tackling handlers as well as thieves and trying to identify the “puppeteers”. These tactics are now being adopted across Europe.

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