Last month’s raids were aimed at identifying a group of middlemen who, the police say, use secondhand phone shops as part of a multilayered global criminal network. By the end of the two-week operation, detectives had found about 2,000 stolen phones and 200,000 pounds ($266,000) in cash. A Mile of Aluminum FoilFor years, London’s police assumed most of the phone thefts were the work of small-time thieves looking to make some quick cash. “It quickly became apparent this wasn’t just normal low-level street crime,” said Mark Gavin, a senior detective leading the investigation for the Metropolitan Police. Phone theft has been the subject of particular anger among victims, who for years reported their cellphones stolen and handed the police the locations being transmitted, only to be given a crime reference number and hear nothing more.
