The UK National Mobile Phone Crime Unit carried out a number of raids around London last month – under the grandly titled, Operation Prestige – seizing 324 stolen mobile phones and carried out 56 arrests.
The actions were take in Lambeth, Lewisham, Croydon, Brent, Newham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Camden. The police believed that many of the handsets were stolen by street gangs and pickpockets.
While we’re keen not to bash anything that reduced the amount of handsets that are stolen, it does appear that the number of phone recovered would be a tiny percentage of those why are purloined on a daily basis. Back in 2003, when the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit was launched, there were 200 handsets a day being stolen.
Immobilise: Protecting items
One of the services that they’ve set up is Immobilise, that lets people register their mobile phone details online in case they are stolen. Police check against this when mobile phones are recovered by the police.
Since its launch, Immobilise has now expanded the number of goods covered greatly including ipods, portable gaming units, sat nav, laptops and cameras, amount other high value items.