Experts informed MailOnline that mobile phones that are pilfered from UK streets are being transported in large quantities to warehouses in southern China, where they are dismantled, put back together, and sold at discounted rates.
An insatiable demand for second-hand phones in the electronics hub of Shenzhen is being fuelled by handsets snatched by gangsters targeting busy areas in Britain, including music festivals.
If the devices can be unlocked and reset to factory settings, they are marketed as used products after being transported into the city by criminal collaborators who take advantage of its minimal enforcement of rules regarding stolen goods.
Should they not be able to be sold as a complete unit, they are disassembled, with components such as the motherboard, screen, and speaker being used for maintenance or even assembled into brand-new phones.
Shenzhen is located in the south of China, next to the border with Hong Kong. Known as the country’s ‘Silicon Valley’ due to its expertise in electronics, it is also home to large retail outlets selling used consumer goods.
Huaqiang South Road, which is surrounded by warehouses and has a port at one end, has been linked to several stolen phones. It’s thought that stolen cell phones may be arriving at one of the warehouses on this route, where they are disassembled and may be sold.
This comes after Londoner Sukaru Haskan told MailOnline today about the terrifying time his phone was stolen in July from a Knightsbridge street and found again at a Shenzhen home.
Thomas Balogun, an IT and cyber-security specialist who has studied China’s market for pilfered phones, told MailOnline that Mr Haskan’s experience has become alarmingly typical.
‘This is a gang-related thing, with gangsters targeting specific events, like festivals, and stealing phones in large numbers before shipping them to China,’ he said.
‘They have a very big market for used phones, no compliance with the rules against importing stolen goods and weak regulation around individual parts.
‘So they either sell it as a used phone or break it into parts, which are then switched into other phones that don’t work any more or used to build entire new handsets.
‘The phones tend to arrive in a warehouse in Shenzhen, which double up as retail outlets that sell used electronic goods.’
Mr Balogun said he had learned through his research of criminals being able to construct new phones from a variety of parts within ‘hours’.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Before iPhones were stolen, it was car stereos, and after the iPhone, it will be something else.
It’s time to make handling stolen property a far more severe offence. There wouldn’t be any thieves if there wasn’t a fence, and I’m sure Keir Starmer will be on it any minute now with his swift action and swift justice. Yeah, right!
Theft of phones has long been an issue, and it has become worse. However, I also witness individuals staring at them or using their phones while strolling beside the road, putting them in an ideal position to be taken. Avoid taking out your phone until necessary, and when you do, try to be as discrete as possible to prevent it from being stolen.
It amazes me how some people will walk down the street on their phones, which cost a fortune these days, without a care in the world. Would you walk through the streets waving a grand in cash? No, you wouldn’t, but with a phone, you will!
Made in China, shipped to the UK, stolen and then shipped back to China—it’s the Circle of Life!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 