How I saw police smash Britain's biggest phone theft gang

The marching orders being handed out were the result of a 10 month-long investigation into a gang, thought to be responsible for four in ten phone thefts across the capital last year.

That’s around 40,000 devices, believed to have been wrapped in tin foil, packed into cardboard boxes and shipped to China in as little as two weeks after they’d been snatched from victims in areas like Soho and Mayfair.

And while this action was being taken, near Palmers Green, the same was being done in around 25 other car parks across London, just metres from the doors that other teams were being tasked with knocking in at the same time, to make arrests.

I piled into the back of a TSG van with five officers from the Territorial Support Group, all kitted up with their overalls and riot helmets on, before we joined a convoy of several other vans making the short drive to a quiet, residential and unsuspecting street.

The policing minister and London’s deputy mayor for policing stood alongside me as we watched officer after officer queue up in the dark, ready to enter the house, where some of the suspected pickpocketers lived.

Teams across the capital were ready to strike at exactly the same time.

And then it happened. The door was pushed open, seemingly unlocked, and 30 big, loud men charged their way into every room shouting “POLICE. POLICE.”

A woman was heard screaming, before moments later, in the upstairs bedroom, where the light had suddenly come on, the head of a Bulgarian man leant out of the open window as officers behind put him in handcuffs.

“What has happened?” he yelled down to us on the street, saying, “I don’t understand. My baby is scared.”

Two people were detained at this address which had 13 people living inside it and dozens of phones, laptops and tablets were seized.

I was talking to the policing minister Sarah Jones as one of the suspects - a young looking woman - was walked out by officers and led to the van.

“What sort of message do you think this sends?” I asked her, as the van door was being closed and the engine started.

“The police are really joined up here for the first time to tackle this kind of crime,” she told me.

“I think that’s really important. People want to be safe on their streets.”

The coordinated action I watched that morning was going after the street offenders, who we’re told have been selling devices to a network of handlers for between £300 and £500 each.

Some are thought to have stolen phones from up to 10 people a day.

The arrests made here came just two days after another warrant, watched by the Commissioner and the Mayor of London from the Met’s command centre, saw the two suspected ring leaders detained.

They are Afghan nationals who have had the code names Seagull and Heron since officers first started investigating them.

They’re thought to have smuggled around 40% of London’s stolen phones out of the country through Heathrow.

Their business may have been stopped in its tracks, after one victim used GPS tracking to locate her stolen phone in a warehouse by the airport.

Almost 1,000 of them were inside the same cardboard box labelled asshipping batteries.

An investigating officer told me someone had asked them what made them think there might be phones in there.

He played us a video of the box, from inside the warehouse, where - very clearly - a phone could be heard ringing inside.

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