The Metropolitan Police has issued an ultimatum to technology companies, demanding they make stolen phones harder to reuse or face government intervention. The warning comes as the force announced a new partnership with Apple to share intelligence on stolen devices, aiming to disrupt global criminal networks behind phone theft.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley stated: 'I gave an ultimatum to tech firms – take urgent steps to prevent stolen phones from being resold and reused, or we will call on Government to step in and legislate.' The partnership is already yielding results, with stolen phones becoming less valuable to criminals as reactivation becomes more difficult.
The Met has been campaigning for over two years, highlighting phone theft as a lucrative international criminal enterprise. In April, three mobile phone handlers admitted handling stolen goods following an investigation into what officers described as the UK's largest mobile phone smuggling network, which trafficked up to 40,000 stolen devices from the UK to China between 2024 and 2025.
Phone theft in Westminster has fallen by 50 per cent following a targeted crackdown, with hundreds of arrests and thousands of stolen phones recovered. The force is also calling on the government to introduce legislation requiring phone companies to publish data on stolen devices and reconnections, and to prepare minimum technical standards to render stolen phones unusable.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: 'The Commissioner and I have been crystal clear that mobile phone crime cannot be solved by policing alone. Decisive and coordinated action from the mobile phone industry is long overdue.'
