Phone theft falls as Met secures agreement with Apple

The agreement will see the force and the technology company share intelligence on stolen devices, helping to identify whether phones reappear in circulation and making it harder for criminals to profit from theft.

According to the Met, early data suggests a significant number of stolen phones included in a recent sample have not been successfully reactivated, reducing their resale value and undermining a criminal market worth millions of pounds.

The announcement comes as the force reports a 50 per cent reduction in phone theft across Westminster, one of London’s worst-affected areas for the offence, following a series of targeted operations.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said preventing stolen phones from being reused was key to tackling the problem in the long term. He said: “If stolen phones cannot be reactivated, their value collapses, and so does the incentive to steal them.”

Sir Mark said the force had spent more than two years pressing technology companies to introduce stronger security measures and warned that legislation may be required if industry action does not go far enough. The force said it is also working with Samsung and Google on security improvements designed to make stolen devices less attractive to criminals.

Alongside the partnership with Apple, the Commissioner has written to the Home Secretary calling for legislation requiring phone manufacturers to publish data on stolen devices and reconnections. The force is also urging the Government to prepare minimum technical standards that would render phones stolen in the UK effectively unusable.

The announcement follows a series of operations targeting phone theft across the capital. During the latest phase of Operation Reckoning, officers arrested suspected prolific offenders, executed warrants at businesses suspected of handling stolen goods and deployed specialist pursuit teams to target thieves using high-powered e-bikes.

The force said recent investigations have targeted the criminal supply chain behind phone theft, including a network responsible for smuggling up to 40,000 stolen devices from the UK to China between 2024 and 2025, approximately 40 per cent of all phones stolen in London during that period. A separate operation targeting gang-organised theft found children as young as 14 being recruited as street-level thieves, with incentives promoted via social media.

More than 3,500 illegally modified e-bikes and e-scooters have also been seized since January 2025 as police seek to tackle the vehicles increasingly used in mobile phone snatches.

The MPS said thefts involving mobile phones across London have fallen by 18 per cent over the past 12 months, with Westminster recording almost 4,500 fewer stolen phones during the first five months of 2026 compared with the same period last year.