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  "path": "/2026/06/11/apple-launches-iphone-change-will-hit-snatching-networks-worth-millions-28723685/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-10T23:01:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://metro.co.uk",
  "tags": [
    "News",
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    "Crime News",
    "London",
    "Metropolitan Police",
    "supports HTML5\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tvideo",
    "Apple",
    "phone",
    "Samsung",
    "London Tube strikes – full list of affected lines and exact time they will start",
    "Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker banned from visiting UK for SXSW hours before festival kick-off",
    "London’s ‘most luxurious’ secret garden is reopening — with strict rule for visitors",
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  "textContent": "To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tvideo\n\nUp Next\n\nPrevious Page\n\nNext Page\n\nStolen mobiles will essentially become unusable bricks after Apple agreed to help deter phone snatching.\n\nThe technology giant has made a deal with the Metropolitan Police, ensuring phones cannot be reactivated once they are marked as stolen.\n\nSamsung and Google have also agreed to make changes to tackle the issue.\n\nDevice identifiers, such as the International Mobile Equipment Identity Number, will be shared between bodies.\n\nThis can not only track phones and switch them off, but reveal when they reappear in circulation.\n\nThe agreement will be able to disrupt entire criminal networks and business model worth millions, built entirely around snatching phones out of the hands of unsuspecting Londoners.\n\n## Are we winning in the fight against phone snatchers?\n\nPolice check CCTV and drone footage to track down phone snatchers (Picture: Met Police)\n\nOfficers recently launched Operation Reckoning, which saw 10-days of arrests and enforcement against phone snatching gangs in London,.\n\nFootage shows raids against shops accused of selling stolen phones and arresting thieves with ‘interceptors’.\n\nNew technology has aided officer’s efforts. Drones are able to track the thieves as police chase using their own Sur-On e-bikes, which is much quicker and easier compared to following in car or on foot.\n\nOperation Reckoning is still ongoing, but other periods of enforcement have proven successful.\n\nIn February, a four-week crackdown on phone theft saw officers make 248 arrests and recover 770 stolen devices. A further 122 people were arrested for other offences as part of the wider operation.\n\n##  Latest London news\n\n  * London Tube strikes – full list of affected lines and exact time they will start\n  * Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker banned from visiting UK for SXSW hours before festival kick-off\n  * London’s ‘most luxurious’ secret garden is reopening — with strict rule for visitors\n\n\n\n_**To get the latest news from the capital, visit Metro's** London news hub._\n\nA woman has her phone snatched in London (Picture: Met Police)\n\nIn April, the Met seized a further 1,000 suspected stolen mobile phones during a raid on a shop in north-west London. Four men were arrested.\n\nThat same month, three phone thieves pleaded guilty to handling stolen goods in an £180 million criminal operation.\n\nAmir Muhammad Khadikhel, Ismat Miakhel and Mansoor Mohammed were responsible for trafficking up to 40,000 devices – around 40% of all stolen phones in London – to China between 2024 and 2025.\n\nPolice have raided shops suspected of selling stolen phones (Picture: Met Police)\n\nStolen phones uncovered in a London shop (Picture: Met Police)\n\n##  Phone snatching: The stats\n\nTheft from the person and robbery offences where a mobile phone has been stolen has dropped by 14,000 in the year up to May 2026, marking an 18% reduction.\n\nIn 2026 alone, offences are down by 6,700, a 20.6% reduction compared to the same period in 2025.\n\nThis is even more significant in Westminster, a national driver of theft from person crimes where we have seen a 45.8% reduction this calendar year so far (Jan-May 2026), that is 4,500 fewer phones being stolen in Westminster alone.\n\n## ‘We are driving up the risk for offenders while cutting off the reward’\n\nCommissioner Sir Mark Rowley has repeatedly called on companies to do more to deter phone snatching, giving them an ultimatum to step up or they will petition for the law to change.\n\nHe said: ‘For the first time, we are routinely sharing intelligence on stolen devices, building a joint picture of how these phones move and whether they reappear in circulation.\n\n‘That partnership is already making a difference. If stolen phones cannot be reactivated, their value collapses, and so does the incentive to steal them.\n\nThe Met arrest a suspected phone snatcher (Picture: Met Police)\n\n‘We are driving up the risk for offenders while cutting off the reward.’\n\nSir Mark has also written to the Home Office asking for new laws which will ensure there are ‘minimum technical standards’ to make sure every mobile, once reported as stolen, is unusable.\n\nKate Adams, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at Apple, said: ‘Keeping our users, their devices, and their data safe is at the heart of what we do.\n\n‘That includes building industry-leading security features that significantly reduce the motivation for criminals to target people in the first place.’\n\nThe Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: ‘The Commissioner and I have been crystal clear that mobile phone crime cannot be solved by policing alone.\n\n‘Decisive and coordinated action from the mobile phone industry is long overdue to prevent stolen phones being used, sold and repurposed both here and across the globe.\n\n‘I’ve seen for myself how Google and Samsung have introduced some advanced security features and I welcome Apple and the Met reaching an agreement to protect mobile phone users, and make stolen phones unusable.’\n\n******Get in touch with our news team by emailing us atwebnews@metro.co.uk.******\n\n**For more stories like this,** check our news page.\n\nComment now Comments \nAdd Metro as a Preferred Source on Google\nAdd as preferred source\n",
  "title": "Apple launches iPhone change that will hit snatching networks worth millions"
}