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.

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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”.

  • FIash Mob #5678@beehaw.org
    2·
    3 months ago

    Not blaming the victim here, just glad I have different habits.

    Stories like this make me glad I’m not one of those people glued to my phone 24/7.

    It’s way harder to snatch it when it’s in your pocket.

    But the fun of these stories is when someone writes an article about the thieves trying to scam the victim into giving up their codes. That’s always amusing.