it doesn’t look like it’s stopping anytime soonbut as gangs continue to roam the city every day, some brave locals have become too smart for the criminals.
Circling parts of London on a moped or, more commonly, silent and illegally modified e-bikes, these unscrupulous phone thieves they stop at nothing.
Speeding around corners and catching locals and tourists off guard, they rush in secondsleaving unsuspecting victims zero time to react before realizing what has happened.
And now, as the crisis draws to a close, some Londoners are beginning to adapt.
A number of videos have surfaced online of would-be victims “overpowering” phone thieves by grabbing the devices behind them or managing to keep them.
Unfortunately, these quick-thinking pedestrians still they are a minority and gangs of phone thieves still roam free.
A number of MPs are now said to have fallen victim to the robbers, who usually caught on security cameras stealing devices around the Mayfair area and along Oxford Street.
The government’s office issued a decree to the elected deputies, warning them to be on alert in the Parliament area in Westminster after several MPs ‘lost’ their mobiles.
Bystanders can’t help but watch as the thugs come up behind or alongside their unsuspecting victims.
In an instant, their phone is in their hand. The next, it’s gone – hidden in a pocket or handed over to an accomplice carrying other stolen devices.
Some run after the thieves. Others realize that there is no point and that the device is long gone, probably bound overseas to be dismantled and sold for partsif it cannot be unlocked.
Met Police figures show that last year a mobile phone was stolen in the capital every six minutesin a seemingly uncontrollable rise.
Robberies increased by more than a third between October 2020 and September this year. But thefts have almost tripled from 23,106 in September 2021 to 66,528 this year.
London tour bus worker Ovye recently told the Daily Mail: “It can happen to anyone. I once saw someone grab a phone out of a little girl’s hand while she was taking a picture. He couldn’t have been more than four years old. Unbelievable.”
Disguises and speed make them rogues almost undetectableto the point where police chiefs have called on phone makers to do more to make it harder to unlock the devices and sell them on the black market.
With information from Daily Mail
