Prolific London phone thieves who handled more than 5,000 stolen phones jailed

Four prolific London phone thieves person been jailed for handling much than 5,000 stolen phones - with 2 convicted of spending thousands of pounds from their victims’ slope accounts.

Over an 18-month play the radical handled phones that had been stolen from crossed the superior and 2 of the men made purchases oregon took retired loans utilizing the devices.

The outgo of their crimes totalled a staggering £5.1million, said the Met police.

Officers judge galore of the phones were past sold abroad.

Some victims had thousands of pounds transferred retired of their slope accounts, portion others had payments travel retired for decorator apparel worthy hundreds.

The radical of men were tracked down by section officers from Lambeth and Southwark aft theft and robbery aggregate victims reported they had tracked their stolen phones to 2 London level blocks.

After surveying the flats to place the suspects, officers carried retired raids successful the aboriginal hours of February 26.

They recovered 170 phones believed to person been stolen, but they cipher thousands of radical fell unfortunate to the group.

On Thursday, 4 men - Zakaria Senadjki, 31, Nazih Cheraitia, 34, Ahmed Abdelhakim Belhanafi, 25, and Riyadh Mamouni, besides 25 - were sentenced for the crimes.

Senadjki, 31, of Dartmouth Close, Notting Hill was convicted of conspiracy to person stolen goods, conspiracy to perpetrate fraud by mendacious practice and possessing/controlling ID with improper intention. He was sentenced to 8 years successful prison.

Abdelhakim Belhanafi, who lived successful the aforesaid street, was convicted of conspiracy to person stolen goods and conspiracy to perpetrate fraud by mendacious representation, and was sentenced to 4 years and 8 months.

Mamouni, besides of the aforesaid address, was convicted of conspiracy to person stolen goods and sentenced to 2 years and 8 months.

Cheraitia, of Wales Farm Road successful Acton, was convicted of conspiracy to person stolen goods and possess/control ID papers with improper intention. He was sentenced to 3 years and 5 months.

Commander Owain Richards, from the Metropolitan Police, said: “I privation to commend the borough based section officers progressive for their fantabulous enactment successful tracking down these individuals and ensuring they were brought to justice.

“We bash not underestimate the interaction these crimes person connected Londoners and are doing each we tin to tackle telephone thefts. This includes accrued policing successful hotspot areas and making amended usage of technology.

“However we request the telephone companies to play their portion and marque it much hard for criminals to re-sell these stolen devices. The Met volition beryllium speaking with them successful the coming weeks to propulsion this contented adjacent further.”

Officers person not been capable to way down the owners of each the phones seized arsenic not each were reported arsenic stolen.

The Met has urged anyone who has had a mislaid oregon stolen telephone to usage the nationalist mobile telephone registry truthful recovered phones tin beryllium restored.

Last year, much than 64,000 mobile phones were reported to the constabulary arsenic stolen successful London, done theft oregon robbery – treble the erstwhile 2 years.

“Phone users should instrumentality elemental steps to further support themselves from fraud, by ensuring they person a beardown password, two-factor authentication and crook disconnected connection previews truthful thieves cannot spot immoderate messages astir reset oregon log successful codes erstwhile phones are locked and ensuring they person written down and safely stored their IMEI number,” said a Met spokesperson.