More than a thousand suspected stolen mobiles have been seized by police as part of a crackdown on phone theft across London.
Metropolitan Police raided a convenience store in Kilburn High Road, north London, last Tuesday as part of a week of action in Brent focusing on tackling theft, robbery and e-bike related crime.
Around 1,161 phones were seized as part of the raid, the force confirmed today, double the amount of phones initially suspected. The force had originally reported that hundreds were found in the store last week.
Four men, aged 22, 25, 34 and 63, were arrested on suspicion of handling stolen goods, possession of drugs and intent to supply.
Bodycam footage of the raid showed a number of armed officers move through the shop towards the back of the store, where they used bolt cutters to unlock a door into a room where multiple shelves were stacked high with smartphones.
Police procured a warrant after intelligence led them to believe the venue was being used to supply Class B drugs.
Three of the suspects were released on bail, while one was released under investigation.
Inspector Yu Zhang, from the Met’s local policing team in Brent, said last Thursday that the force was not only targeting phone snatchers, but those who profit from the stolen devices.
“We understand mobile phone theft remains a major concern for Londoners and that’s why we have worked hard to drive down offending,” Inspector Zhang said. “Seizures such as this show that we are not only targeting individual phone snatchers, but also those who handle and profit from stolen devices.
“Londoners deserve to feel safe and we are committed to relentlessly disrupting the organised criminal networks fuelling this crime”
The arrests come as fewer than one per cent of mobile phone thefts actually result in a charge, The Independent revealed in March via freedom of information request. Nearly nine in 10 cases were closed without a suspect being identified, with the Met Police closing 95 per cent of their investigations.
The force has said mobile phone theft offences dropped from 81,365 in 2024 to 71,391 last year across the capital as part of its focused crackdown on the crime.
Earlier this year, the force arrested 248 individuals and seized 770 stolen phones as part of four weeks’ worth of intensified activity to combat mobile phone theft across London.
Officers are using intelligence, drones and high-powered Sur-Ron electric bikes, to catch offenders and disrupt the stolen mobile phone market.
