Thieves snatched his phone in London – he tracked it to China

As he left Holborn tube station in central London earlier on a Saturday night in April, Akara Etteh was checking his phone.

Akara chased the hacker away, but they were caught on the back of an electric vehicle a moment after.

He is just one victim of an estimated 78,000 “snatch thefts” in England and Wales in the year to March, a big increase on the previous 12 months.

The police claim they are pursuing the criminals responsible but are unable to “arrest their way out of the problem” because this crime has a very small prosecutors rate. Additionally, they claim that companies and software companies have a bigger role to play.

Survivors of the violence have been reporting to the BBC about how much of an effect it has had on them, from losing precious photographs to having thousands of pounds stolen.

And for Akara, like many other people who have their telephone taken, there was another disappointment: he was able to record where his machine went, but was useless to get it again.

When he arrived home an hour or so afterwards, he turned on the Find My iPhone have using his notebook, which prevented the thieves from gaining access to its contents.

This made it possible for Akara to track the rough location of his phone, and it almost instantly turned up a notification that said it was in Islington. Eight days later, the smartphone started pinging again in various places in and around north London.

In a move says he “would n’t recommend” with hindsight, he went to two of the locations his phone had been in to “look around”.

” It was really risky”, he said. ” I was fueled by frustration and excitement.”

He did n’t speak to anyone, but he felt he was being watched and went home.

” I am truly angry”, he said. ” The telephone is cheap. We work hard to earn that funds, to be able to buy the phone, and someone else says ‘ screw that ‘”.

Therefore, in May, only over a month after the theft, Akara checked Find My iPhone repeatedly- his prized possession was then on the other side of the world- in Shenzhen, China.

Akara gave up.

It is not uncommon for stolen phones to end up in Shenzhen – where if devices can’t be unlocked and used again, they are disassembled for parts.

The city is home to 17.6 million citizens and is a big tech hub, often referred to as China’s Silicon Valley.

When Akara’s phone was stolen, he confronted officers in the street and explained what had happened. Soldiers, he said, were aware of criminals doing a “loop of the neighborhood” to seize devices, and he was encouraged to review the crime online, which he did.

The Metropolitan Police informed him via email that the case was closed because “it is doubtful that we will be able to identify those accountable” a few days later.

After that, Akara provided the images and details he had gathered from the places where his stolen mobile had been. The police gave an acknowledgement of receipt but did n’t take any further steps.

The Metropolitan Police, which had no comment on Akara’s particular case, said it was “targeting solutions to destination areas, such as Westminster, Lambeth, and Newham, with increased inspections and plain attire soldiers, which deter thieves and create soldiers more clearly visible to members of the community.”

Numerous other people have contacted the BBC about their experiences with having their phones taken. One, James O’Sullivan, 44, from Surrey, says he lost more than £25, 000 when thieves used his stolen device’s Apple Pay service.

Meanwhile, Katie Ashworth, from Newcastle, explained her phone was snatched in a park along with her watch, and a debit card in the phone case.

The 36-year-old claims that the phone had the last photos I had of my mother walking before she became too ill to actually do anything.” I would do anything to get those photos back,” she said.

Again, she says, there was a lack of action from the police.

” Despite my bank transactions showing exactly where the thieves went, the police never even followed it up with me,” she said.

” The police just instructed me to check local used shops like Cex and Facebook Marketplace,” the police said.

So why do the police seem to be unable to stop this crime or recover lost items?

Only “quite a low number” of stolen phones are actually recovered, according to PC Mat Evans, who has led a team working on this kind of crime for West Midlands Police for more than ten years.

He claims that the issue is with how quickly criminals move.

Within a few hours, he promised, “phones will be offloaded to known fences.”

People should always report these things to the police because we ca n’t look into these crimes if we do n’t know that they are occurring, so it’s always a battle against the clock immediately.

And sometimes just one arrest can make a difference.

” When we do catch these criminals, either in the act or after the fact, our crime rates tank”, he said.

” Quite frequently that individual has been the perpetrator of a significant amount of crime.”

But the problem is not just about policing.

In a statement, Commander Richard Smith from the National Police Chiefs ‘ Council, which brings together senior officers to help develop policing strategy, said it would” continue to target” the most prolific criminals.

” We know that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem”, he said.

” Manufacturers and the tech industry have an important role in reducing the opportunities for criminals to profit from the resale of stolen handsets.”

Stolen phones can already be tracked and their data can be recovered using Android’s” Find My iPhone” and” Find My Device” services.

However, Dame Diana Johnson, the policing minister, claimed this week that the government wanted manufacturers to make sure any stolen phone could be permanently disabled to stop it from being sold second-hand.

Additionally, police chiefs will be given the task of obtaining more information about where and how stolen phones are found.

A growing demand for second-hand phones, both in the UK and abroad, is believed to be a major driver behind the recent rise in thefts, the government said.

A summit will be held by the Home Office where tech companies and phone manufacturers will be asked to discuss innovations that might stop illegal phone trade.

There was” no magic bullet,” according to PC Evans, but he claimed there was one thing manufacturers could do that would be “enormously helpful” to the police: provide more accurate tracking.

” At this moment in time, phone tracking is okay”, he said.

” But it’s not quite that scene in Total Recall where you can run around with a tracking device in your hand and sprint down the road after a brief bleep dot.”

Although it’s a big ask from the phone companies to make that a thing, it would be incredibly helpful from a policing perspective.

Samsung said it was “working closely with key stakeholders and authorities on the issue of mobile phone theft and related crimes” despite Apple and Android not releasing a statement to the BBC.

Additional reporting by Tom Singleton