Met Police arrest more than 700 in month-long phone theft crackdown
More than 700 arrests and hundreds of seized phones in the Met's largest phone-theft campaign, as August offences hit a four-year low.
The Metropolitan Police has arrested more than 700 people and seized hundreds of suspected stolen mobile phones during a four-week campaign last month, the force’s largest operation of its kind.
Arrests were made for phone theft, robbery and handling stolen goods, the Met said, as officers targeted every stage of the organised criminal chain. Body-worn and CCTV footage captured one pursuit ending with a suspect leaping into a pond, discarding phones as he fled; officers recovered six phones wrapped in foil, a tactic thieves use to block signals and hinder tracking.
Officers deployed Sur-Ron e-bikes to chase suspects and visited 220 second-hand phone shops across London to gather intelligence. Alongside the phones, police seized drugs, knives, firearms, tens of thousands of pounds in cash and more than 110 illegal e-bikes.
Commander Andy Featherstone, the Met’s lead on phone theft, said London was “becoming a much harder place to steal phones”, adding that “the risks are increasing, the opportunities are shrinking, and we are coming after you.”
The operation follows a sharp fall in offences: the Met recorded 3,963 phone theft and robbery offences in August, the lowest since August 2022, and 39,793 between January and August, down from 49,136 in the same period last year — 9,000 fewer victims. Offences in Westminster, a theft hotspot, are down by almost 50 per cent.
Sources: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/metropolitan-police-phone-thefts-700-arrests-sjzkkjmwr; https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uk/2026/09/25/london-phone-theft-met-police-crackdown/
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