Half of street crime down to mobile phone thefts

More than half of all street crime in London involves a mobile phone being stolen, and almost one third of these involves the theft of only a mobile.

It is believed more than 700,000 phones are stolen each year with almost 50 per cent taken from under 18s. A third of all of the phone theft offenders were 15 or 16, with 80 per cent of all suspects being under 18, the latest Home Office figures say.

Although stolen phones can be blocked from accessing UK networks, if taken abroad they will often still work. Many criminal gangs behind muggings export the handsets to Africa, Asia and other parts of Europe, where prices are higher because mobile phone networks do not subsidise handset prices as they do in Britain.

Police have launched an initiative to cut mobile phone crime, with a dedicated specialist unit, the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit.