SONNY STRINGER needed only one hour to steal 24 phones from unsuspecting pedestrians on a single morning in central London.
But the 28-year-old, who was jailed for two years last August, is just one of hundreds of such thieves now stalking our nation’s cities, often on e-bikes, to hunt down their next victim.
Serial snatcher Sonny Stringer was jailed for two years
The haul of phones stolen by Stringer
Rosamund Pike revealed recently how she was punched in the face and robbed of her phone in London
If you’re lucky, you will spot them coming before they ride up beside you and strike.
If not, your handset might have been one of the at least 230 that were stolen EVERY DAY in the UK last year — double the number taken five years ago.
Nowhere is the menace worse than in , with more than 70,000 cases — three quarters of the national total — reported in 2024.
Next to the famous red buses and black cabs, these e-bike marauders are an all-too-familiar sight on the streets of the capital.m
actress how she was punched in the face and robbed of her phone in , while talking on it to her mum.
This year, I myself became a victim — and so did The Sun’s own Clemmie Moodie, who just three weeks ago had her device snatched out of her hands in Mayfair.
Tracking it via the , she was later able to see where it had ended up.
Where? Almost 6,000 miles away, in China’s “Silicon Valley” city of Shenzhen.
But hers is just one of the many thousands of UK phones to have met the same fate, fuelling a trade driven by massive demand for secondhand handsets.
Now, a reveals how, step by step, gang networks move stolen devices in bulk order across the world — and what happens to them . . .
THE SNATCH
IT all starts off with a well-timed snatch.
Normally working in pairs or threes, thieves on e-bikes cruise the streets on the lookout for oblivious pedestrians glued to their devices, held out in front of them.
An e-bike rider, all in black, mounts the pavement behind victim
The masked menace grabs phone from pedestrian
Thief is off and away before victim has time to look up
They are silent, and swift, riding up to their target on the pavement before grabbing the gadget with grippy gloves and making a quick getaway.
Dressed in black from head to toe, faces covered and weaving through traffic at speeds of up to 50mph, they are far from easy to track or catch.
Just a few hours’ “work” and the number of handsets they bag can be “well into the double figures”, Inspector Dan Green of the City of London told The Sun.
From there, he added, they will often travel along planned routes and may drop the phones off to an accomplice at a meeting point before heading out to try and steal some more.
As soon as possible, the gang will try to block any signals from reaching the phones.
To do this, they either put them in a metal-lined Faraday bag or will wrap them up in kitchen foil. Inspector Green said it’s not uncommon for police to sometimes find discarded rolls of foil in an area that tracking data has led them to.
Despite iPhone prices reaching into the thousands, thieves will usually get around a couple of hundred quid for each one they sell on.
“They know exactly where these phones are going to go once they’ve nicked them,” added Inspector Green.
“They have got a buyer already lined up, and with pre- determined prices. It’s all a fairly well-oiled machine.”
THE HAND-OFF
THE thieves riding around on e-bikes are at the bottom of the gang hierarchy, handing on their stolen goods to buyers who might source from numerous street groups.
At this point, may try to access victims’ bank accounts or extort them — but in most cases, security features make this impossible.
Thieves on e-bikes cruise the streets on the lookout for oblivious pedestrians
The phones can then change hands dozens of times, passing from one middle-market gang to the next, and to unscrupulous shop owners who knowingly deal with stolen goods.
At each handover, the handsets will be taken out of their foil coverings then rewrapped, allowing the buyer to verify the goods.
It is why victims tracking their stolen devices with apps like Find My iPhone will see them appear in one location, disappear then reappear in another, sometimes miles away. One police raid last year on a flat in Notting Hill, West London, uncovered 170 stolen phones wrapped in foil, in the possession of an Algerian gang.
Handwritten ledgers revealed the gang — jailed in November for a total of almost 19 years — had handled more than 5,000 handsets in just 18 months, netting themselves £5.1million from gaining access to bank accounts and from selling devices abroad.
But why can’t the police just go to these addresses and recover the stolen property?
“The tracking information isn’t as accurate as it seems,” explained Inspector Green.
Although data reveals the phone’s rough location, it could be in the house next door, or in one of dozens of residences in a block of flats.
Equally, the tracking information could only be revealing where a handover happened, rather than somewhere the stolen handset was actually being stored.
“We’ve got to be really careful with the powers that we’ve got and how we can actually use them,” Inspector Green added. “We can’t just go smashing doors in for no reason.”
To the delight of frustrated victims, however, new laws set to be introduced will allow police to search without warrant properties where devices have been geolocated.
THE EXPORT
AFTER passing from one handler to another, the stolen devices will end up in the hands of an organised group that exports them to the other side of the world.
It’s why it is common for victims tracking their phone to see it give one final “ping” on an industrial estate near an airport.
Stolen devices end up in the hands of an organised crime group
But the handsets are then bundled together in non-descript boxes that look no different to the thousands of other packages leaving the country.
No wonder an average of just two per cent of stolen devices end up making their way back to victims. With security measures in the UK making it hard to unlock phones, it’s estimated that around 80 per cent of stolen handsets end up abroad.
A survey by the found that around 20 per cent of those snatched in London are moved to , while seven per cent head to Hong Kong, before often appearing in Shenzhen.
Another common destination is Algeria, with 28 per cent landing up in this busy market for stolen devices.
THE STRIP-DOWN
WITH a population of more than 17million, Shenzhen is a sprawling metropolis teeming with people who are experts in not only making phones, but taking them apart again.
“There’s huge demand in , with people looking for secondhand phones, as well as accessories such as the screen and the battery which can also be reused and resold,” explained PhD student Zituo Wang, at the University of Southern , who researched the country’s role in this criminal trade.
There’s ‘huge demand’ in China, with people looking for secondhand phones
China is home to the largest iPhone factory in the world, as well as at least 40 other companies that supply parts for Apple.
Row after row of secondhand devices can be found on sale in Shenzhen’s dizzying Huaqiangbei electronics market, where just about any phone component can be traded.
Meanwhile, Wang explained, those handsets that are shipped to Hong Kong will then travel along well- established smuggling routes into Shenzhen.
“The first thing the Chinese buyers will do is examine the phone, and they’ll see that it’s a UK or US model, and that it’s locked,” he added, meaning they will almost certainly know it’s been stolen.
The devices will often be recharged to verify they’re not fakes, which is why victims will then receive an alert showing their handset is now on the other side of the world.
A fake “fishing” message may be sent out to try to trick the owner into unlocking their phone, but usually this is only done so that it can be reset to factory settings and resold whole.
When the phone can’t be unlocked, it instead will end up being stripped for parts, and the precious metals inside melted down.
If your handset was not already irretrievable, it is at this point.
At a summit earlier this year, the UK’s then-Home Secretary urged tech companies to join forces with law enforcement to introduce additional anti-theft features into phones that would deter criminals.
The Metropolitan Police has also said it is stepping up targeted patrols, and the use of plain-clothed officers, to curb the phone snatchers.
SWIPED WHILE I TALKED IN THE ROAD
By
IT was on a cold night in May that I became a victim of phone snatching myself.
Unlike the thieves who speed around pavements on e-bikes, the gang that got me had devised quite a slick way of stealing my device.
I was waiting for the bus near a central London station and I confess I’d had a few beers. Up to me comes a friendly guy, dressed normally, who strikes up a conversation about a clothing brand he has made.
After chatting for a few minutes my guard was completely down and he asked if I wanted to follow his brand on Instagram.
I thought, ‘Why not?’– I could always unfollow him later.
But the moment I put my passcode in, the phone was snatched from my grip.
Before I’d even registered what had happened, the guy who took the phone had handed it to someone who was sprinting past.
And in a couple of seconds, they had both scarpered. Their operation was carefully designed to get not just my phone but passcode too.
Without my code, all they can do is sell on the device. But with it, they were able to access everything including one of my bank accounts.
It was a race against time to block my cards but without another phone it was close to impossible and they managed to splash out £700 at Argos.
To say I felt sick to my stomach when I saw this was an understatement.
I reported it to the police but there was nothing they were able to do.
Cue a day of tearing my hair out trying to sort a new phone, get back in contact with people and recover my money. Thankfully, I was able to get the cash back and pick up a new phone.
It still fills me with anger when I think about what happened.
But the thought that they are still out there, preying on ordinary people and getting away with it, is worse.
These villains are taking us for fools.
Their minds don’t work like yours or mine, and soft treatment just won’t cut it any more.
So I welcome the Government’s plan for a crackdown because it is about time someone shows these thugs what proper justice looks like.
