Phone thefts have more than doubled in some areas.
Every week a new video seems to surface of bike riding thieves snatching mobile phones from pedestrians’ hands on the streets of London.
Phone thefts have more than doubled in some parts of London in recent years, according to new statistics from the Metropolitan Police.
The force’s website says: ‘Thousands of mobile phones are stolen in London every year, most commonly through pickpocketing, table surfing, and more recently an increase in snatches by criminals riding on mopeds.’
Losing your phone can be terrifying when it’s stolen by force, which is classed as robbery of a mobile phone.
There were 10,485 of those recorded by the Met between 2022 and 2023.
But losing photos and contacts that weren’t back up, or running the risk of your most intimate images being exposed, can be just as harrowing an experience even when there is no violence.
Such cases – involving pickpocketing and snatching – are classed as theft.
The Met recorded 41,705 of those in the same period.
So where are you most at risk of phone theft?
Westminster is by far the biggest phone theft hotspot in the capital.
More than a third of phone thefts in London happen in this area popular with sightseeing tourist.
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The Met recorded 14,602 cases there, up 71% from the previous year.
It’s followed some way off by Camden with 4,206, and Southwark with 3,426.
Southwark’s cases were up 81%, but the biggest rise of all was Greenwich where phone thefts more than doubled to 451.
You’ve got your best chance of keeping your phone on the fringes of London.
Bexley had the lowest number of phone thefts with just 73 recorded by the Met.
That’s actually up nearly 20% from the year before.
Other areas in the best areas for dodging phone theft saw the crime drop off by more than 20%.
Hillingdon, with just 168 phone thefts, saw its number drop by roughly 42%.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: ‘Mobile phones are a sought after commodity for opportunistic criminals, and are most commonly stolen through pickpocketing, table surfing and more recently by individuals or gangs operating on mopeds.
‘Dedicated proactive teams carry out activity across the capital on a daily basis. This includes enhanced high visibility patrols and proactive intelligence led activity.
‘Together with this, specially trained officers focus their attention on hotspot areas during key times of the day to prevent those intent on using mopeds and other means of transport to target unsuspecting members of the public.
‘It is important that victims and witnesses contact the police as soon as a robbery occurs – the first hour after a robbery takes place or the ‘golden hour’ is critical to catching robbers. In that first hour officers are able to ascertain crucial forensic evidence, helping to take violent criminals off our streets.’
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