Stolen mobile phones is still a major crime in the UK, and a recent undercover reporter for the BBC found out just how easy it was to sell these stolen devices to shops on the UK high street.
The BBC managed to film two shops in the UK purchasing smartphones from them, they got their hands on eight used smartphones by legal means, and then attempted to sell these devices to UK mobile phones stores, as stolen devices.
Each of these 8 smartphones were all personalized with different peoples information, contacts and other details were added, and they even added messages on the phones displays to say things like ‘this phone is stolen’.
One shop purchased four phones from the BBC reported, and the shop thought that these devices were stolen, as this is what the reporter told them.
Whilst each smartphone comes with an individual IMEI number, this can easily be replaced, and a device which is blocked by a network can be unlocked.
Whilst overall thefts of smartphones in London are down by 12 percent over the last 12 months in London, there were still a total of 30,430 devices stolen in the last twelve months.
Source BBC
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