Phone makers urged to make stolen devices worthless to criminals

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has called on manufacturers to take further action to disrupt the market for stolen phones, including measures such as making IMEI numbers more visible and preventing stolen devices from being reset and reused.

The call comes as police forces across England and Wales take part in a national operation targeting the theft, handling and overseas export of stolen mobile phones.

Operation Reckoning involved 17 police forces during September, with officers carrying out more than 700 visits to second-hand mobile phone businesses.

The Metropolitan Police alone arrested more than 700 people during the month-long operation and seized hundreds of suspected stolen phones. Officers also executed more than 50 warrants and visited 220 second-hand phone shops across London.

The Met said the arrests demonstrated links between organised phone theft and wider criminality, with officers also seizing drugs, knives, firearms, cash and more than 110 illegal e-bikes.

The force said phone theft and robbery offences in London have fallen significantly following a sustained crackdown.

There were 39,793 offences recorded between January and August this year, compared with 49,136 during the same period in 2025 – a fall of around a fifth.

The number of offences fell from 81,439 in 2024 to 71,867 in 2025.

The Met also revealed that three men were jailed for a combined 25 years in September following an investigation into what it described as the UK’s largest mobile phone smuggling network.

Detectives found the men had trafficked up to 40,000 stolen phones from the UK to China during 2024 and 2025. The force said the haul represented around 40% of all phones stolen in London during that period.

Commander Andy Featherstone, the NPCC lead for personal robbery and mobile phone crime, said the harder stolen phones were to use or sell, the less attractive they would become to criminals.

He said policing was targeting “every stage of the organised criminal chain”, from street thieves to handlers and exporters.

The Met said work with Apple had already resulted in strengthened security measures on its devices, following more than two years of engagement with the company.

However, the force said the Government should consider legislation to ensure manufacturers maintain and build on such measures in the long term.

Police are also warning victims of phone theft to be alert to so-called social engineering attacks.

The Met said criminals were increasingly posing as trusted organisations to obtain passwords and account details that could allow them to unlock stolen devices. In some cases, victims have been threatened to persuade them to hand over information.

Police, Apple and other legitimate organisations will never ask for passwords or information that would give someone access to a device or account.

The NPCC said the national operation would be used to identify further ways of disrupting the criminal market for stolen phones.