228 Mobile Phones Reported Stolen every HOUR
Recent crime statistics indicate that about 228 mobile phones are reported stolen in the UK every hour, as reported by BBC News in 2010 .
Whilst some of these phones are later found again, the scale of mobile phone theft is simply staggering.
Other figures show that up to 100,000 of the handsets turning up with phone recycling companies may have been stolen, according to the police database of stolen items. The police have also piloted mobile phone scanners in London, which can tell if a phone is on a national database of stolen property and which led to several hundred stolen phones being found. Other police forces are also doing trials of similar technology in a bid to cut mobile crime figures.
Most phones are now blocked by mobile network operators in the UK within 48 hours of the theft being reported, so the stolen mobiles often end up sold abroad by criminals where they can continue being used. Of course, stolen phones can also be used to rack up hundreds or thousands of pounds of call charges between being stolen and the theft being reported when noticed and the handset subsequently being blocked from the phone network.
With the measures currently in place, the profitability of mobile phone crime is falling, however that is little help to the hundreds of thousands of consumers who continue to have theirs stolen.