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Authorities announce they have broken up an international criminal network believed of illegally transporting as many as forty thousand snatched cell phones from the UK to Mainland China during the previous twelve months.

As part of what law enforcement labels the UK's biggest initiative against handset robberies, eighteen individuals have been arrested and more than 2K snatched handsets found.

Police believe the syndicate could be culpable for sending abroad approximately half of all phones pilfered in the capital - where the bulk of phones are snatched in the United Kingdom.

The Probe Triggered by A Single Device

The investigation was sparked after a target tracked a stolen phone last year.

The incident occurred on December 24th and a victim electronically tracked their pilfered Apple device to a warehouse in the vicinity of the international hub, a detective revealed. The personnel there was eager to cooperate and they located the phone was in a crate, alongside 894 other devices.

Police found nearly every one of the phones had been pilfered and in this instance were being transported to the special administrative region. Subsequent deliveries were then stopped and police used scientific analysis on the parcels to locate two men.

Dramatic Arrests

Once authorities targeted the two men, officer-recorded video documented law enforcement, some with Tasers drawn, executing a dramatic roadside apprehension of a automobile. Within, authorities located handsets encased in aluminum - a strategy by perpetrators to transport snatched handsets undetected.

The suspects, both Afghan nationals in their mid-adulthood, were accused with conspiring to accept snatched property and working together to conceal or remove criminal property.

During their detention, dozens of phones were found in their car, and about 2,000 more devices were found at locations associated with them. A third man, a twenty-nine-year-old person from India, has subsequently been indicted with the same offences.

Growing Phone Theft Problem

The number of phones pilfered in London has nearly increased threefold in the last four years, from over 28K in two years ago, to 80,588 in this year. 75% of all the mobile devices taken in the UK are now stolen in the city.

More than twenty million people travel to the metropolis every year and tourist hotspots such as the West End and political hub are frequent for mobile device robbery and robbery.

A rising need for second-hand phones, domestically and internationally, is suspected to be a major driver behind the rise in pilfering - and numerous individuals end up failing to recover their phones returned.

Rewarding Criminal Enterprise

Authorities note that some criminals are abandoning drug trafficking and moving on to the handset industry because it's more lucrative, an authority figure stated. Upon snatching a handset and it's priced in the hundreds, it's evident why perpetrators who are forward-thinking and aim to benefit from recent criminal trends are moving toward that industry.

Senior officers said the illegal network specifically targeted Apple products because of their profitability overseas.

The investigation discovered petty offenders were being paid as much as £300 per phone - and officials indicated pilfered phones are being sold in Mainland China for approximately £4,000 per device, given they are online-capable and more appealing for those trying to bypass restrictions.

Authorities' Measures

This represents the biggest operation on device pilfering and theft in the United Kingdom in the most remarkable series of actions the police force has ever undertaken, a top official announced. We have disrupted illegal organizations at every level from low-tier offenders to worldwide illegal networks sending abroad numerous of snatched handsets annually.

A lot of victims of handset robbery have been doubtful of law enforcement - including the city's police - for not doing enough.

Regular criticisms include police failing to assist when individuals notify the precise current positions of their stolen phone to the law enforcement using Apple's Find My iPhone or similar tracking services.

Personal Account

The previous year, an individual had her device snatched on a major shopping street, in central London. She told she now feels uneasy when coming to the metropolis.

It's very disturbing visiting the area and clearly I don't know who is around me. I'm concerned about my belongings, I'm concerned about my device, she said. I believe the police could be implementing a lot more - maybe establishing further video monitoring or determining whether there are methods they employ plainclothes agents specifically to tackle this challenge. In my opinion owing to the quantity of occurrences and the figure of people getting in touch with them, they don't have the funding and capability to manage all these cases.

For its part, the metropolitan police - which has utilized social media platforms with numerous clips of officers combating handset thieves in {recent months|the past few months|the last several weeks