At curries, a store for electronic equipment, near the Dean Street exit from Tottenham Court Road metro station, shoppers with large posters are pointed out at the danger of the mobile phones. According to the store chain, this is one of the ‘hot spots’ when it comes to the theft of mobile phones.
The warnings are repeated on the sidewalk in front of the store. ‘Mind the Grab’ can be read there. English humor of course, because a reference to the persistent ‘Mind the Gap’, for which metroricists are warned all the time. But at the same time also aimed at walkers who, with their cell phone in front of grabbing, are staring at their device while they walk around.
At curries, a store for electronic equipment, near the Dean Street exit from Tottenham Court Road metro station, shoppers with large posters are pointed out at the danger of the mobile phones. According to the store chain, this is one of the ‘hot spots’ when it comes to the theft of mobile phones. © ANP/HH
Stealing mobile phones is of course not an exclusive English problem. But the chance that your smartphone will be stolen in England is greater than elsewhere. No fewer than forty percent of all stolen mobile phones take place in England. More than half of the English thefts take place in London, with Oxford Street as the most obvious place for a theft.
Tens of millions of damage
Last year more than 6,500 cell phones were stolen in Oxford Street, almost twenty a day. The street was followed at a large distance by Regent Street, the shopping street that crosses Oxford Street, where two thousand mobile phones were stolen last year. In London alone it would be a ‘business’ with an annual turnover of 50 million pounds (around € 60 million).
Last year more than 6,500 cell phones were stolen in Oxford Street, almost twenty a day. © ANP/HH
After all, the thieves operating on scooters and fast electric bicycles are part of an extensive criminal network, as the London police make clear. An average stolen phone call yields between one hundred and two hundred pounds, according to a spokesperson for the London police. Some thieves manage to steal twenty phone calls in a session.
Disraceable robbery
According to the police spokesperson, thieves are also becoming smarter. Until a few years ago, the police managed to find many stolen telephones by using tracker information on the phone. Nowadays thieves succeed in putting the phone in ‘aircraft mode’ in no time, or hide the phone in metal bags, so that they can no longer be traced.
Often the phone calls are abroad at the end of the day, where they are resold. An Algerian criminal organization that specialized in stealing mobile phones, and that was rolled up earlier this year, is said to have closed five thousand phone calls out of the country in a few years. It is the tip of the iceberg. Only in London were 115,000 cell phones stolen last year.
Young women loved target
On social media, it is striking from the videos on which you can see how the thieves work. One of the CCTV cameras present in the shopping street shows how a person is looking at his smartphone. It is almost always about young women. The thief arrives from behind their backs and cuts the smartphone out of the hands. Before the bewildered person realizes what happened, the thief has already disappeared tens of meters away between all the traffic.
Before the bewildered person realizes what happened, the thief has already disappeared tens of meters away between all the traffic. © ANP/HH
There are just as many images from police helicopters on which agents try to find the thieves on motorbikes or in police cars. They are life -threatening chases, because the thieves rush over the sidewalk and do not shy away from driving against traffic.
‘Entertainment district is very dangerous after nine hours’
However, the use of extra motorcycle agents must ensure that the theft of mobile phones is restricted. In any case, in the eyes of Nigel Farage, the leader of the only a few years old Reform Party, who nevertheless takes the lead in opinion polls in recent months. According to Farage, ‘one in three people from London’ would have had to deal with theft of a telephone ‘and it would be’ dangerous to walk through the London West End after nine in the evening ‘. This is the London entertainment district where Oxford Street borders.
The London police opts for a different approach. Since this summer, eighty civilian agents have been deployed to grab thieves of mobile phones in their collar. It doesn’t really work yet. On the internet you can find a site that makes it clear on which part of the nearly two kilometer long Oxford Street the chance of theft of mobile phones is greatest. The place with the warnings at curries is in the top three.