National Mobile Phone Crime Unit joins forces with eBay

The sale of blocked or barred mobile phones on the auction site eBay is now being combated with a joint venture with the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit.

The partnership follows a successful joint-operation to identify and arrest eBay users trying to sell blocked or barred phones. This investigation led to 13 arrests with 45 stolen mobiles seized.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick McNally, NMPCU said: “Closing down this avenue for the sale of stolen mobile phones is a vital part of our campaign to halt handset theft – if thieves cannot sell the items, the drive to steal them will be significantly reduced. We want the public to register their mobile phones free of charge on www.immobilise.com to give police the best chance of recovering stolen phones and arrest those who commit mobile phone crime.

“The commitment by eBay to promote information on Immobilise and provide preventative advice to customers provides a great opportunity to raise public awareness. The very large majority of sellers on eBay are legitimate businesses or individuals.

“However, we are after the very small number of rogue traders. In a bid to find them, we have worked very closely with eBay`s fraud investigation teams and are extremely pleased with the results so far.”

Garreth Griffith, head of Trust and Safety at eBay added: “eBay is committed to keeping criminals off our site. We have long sent out the message that eBay is the worst place to sell stolen items because of the open and transparent nature of the site`s operation: we can see what criminals are doing and we have their contact details.

“This kind of joint operation, however, takes that one step further and these arrests should be taken as a final warning to anyone else trying to conduct criminal activity on eBay.co.uk.”