Nearly two-fifths of robberies in London last year were for mobile phones, it has emerged, as police warned of rising thefts and insisted technology companies must design out the crime.
An attack where violence was used or threatened was carried out roughly every 55 minutes, amounting to 9,500 offences. The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, and the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, said the technology companies making phones, such as Apple and Samsung, could do more to stop them being attractive to thieves, such as by making it harder to re-register phones to new users.
The companies have also been summoned to a summit, expected to be held in the autumn.
In one attack a victim was stabbed in the leg and died. In another robbery a pregnant woman was struck in the stomach and later suffered a miscarriage.
Nearly 70% of all thefts in London last year related to mobile phones, through offences such as pick pocketing and taking them from people’s bags and pub tables. Such thefts are up 27% so far in 2023.
Police hope mobile phone makers will repeat the innovations that made car thefts harder, with industry and law enforcement working together.
Young people are disproportionately involved as victims and perpetrators of mobile phone thefts. London’s tourist hotspots are also ripe for mobile phone thefts, police data suggests.
In January 2023, Kyi-Riece Sylvester, 18, was convicted of fatally stabbing Stelios Averkiou, 16, as he sat on a bench in a north London park. The teenager was stabbed in the leg with Sylvester then grabbing his phone and fleeing.
Stelios’s mother said: “It was not as though he had a long term illness and we had the chance to care for him and say goodbye. He was literally there one minute and gone the next.”
The Met said it was running adverts on Snapchat to warn young people of the dangers of mobile phone robbery, and said last month officers found a man in a fast food shop with a rucksack full of phones – believed to be stolen – wrapped in silver foil to avoid detection.
Three males, aged 15, 20 and 60, were arrested at a KFC in Kilburn, north London, the Met said, leading to an investigation that linked the phones to 20 phone robbery victims, 18 of whom have got their devices back.
Rowley said: “The current practice of allowing stolen mobiles to be re-registered by new users within the phone industry inadvertently enables a criminal market which drives robbery, thefts and violent offending in London.
“We need partners to step up to the plate and work alongside us to break this cycle of violence fuelled by the ability of mobile phones to be re-purposed and sold on in this way.
“Until we are working jointly with industry to remove the ability for phones to be used in this way, Londoners will continue to fall victim to those who will not hesitate to use violence to steal from them.”
Khan faces a re-election battle next year and his administration pointed to falls in other crime types as phone robberies rise.
Compared with the 12 months before Khan was elected in 2016, in the year to 2023 knife crime with injury was down 2%, knife crime with injury where victims were under 25 dropped by 19%, gun crime fell 14%, homicide was down 3% and burglary down 21%, his spokesperson said.
Khan added: “The spiralling cost of living threatens to exacerbate the drivers of violence and robberies, which we know disproportionately impact young people.
“It’s simply too easy and profitable for criminals right now to repurpose and sell on stolen phones. That’s why, alongside strengthening neighbourhood policing and record investment in supporting the police to go after the worst offenders, the commissioner and I are calling on the mobile phone industry to work with us and play their part in reducing robberies and thefts involving mobile phones.”
