How I saw UK’s biggest phone gang smashed: Bulgarians in suburbia, and their incredible link to a Hong Kong skyscraper filled with a million stolen handsets

In the full rebellion equipment with Balaclavas, he drew their heads, and the mass of public order officers surrounded the middle terraci suburban house quietly.

Around 5 in the morning, autumn coldness ‘police officers, this is a search order’ and the knight of the heavy boots passing through the door.

The front door was opened, so that the officer, who used a battering coach, shrugged a frustrated shoulder to the ground and jumped home with others.

A few minutes later, a small Bulgarian woman in a purple dressing dress moved to a police minibus with a clamp.

Shortly after, a man wearing a red football shirt, shorts and flip flops was given the same treatment.

The pressure of all action in a house in Enfield in North London was one of the 30 simultaneous operations in London in the early hours of September 25th.

The aim of the large operation, which contained 300 officers, was to roll the robbers, intermediaries and kingpins responsible for the telephone theft epidemic of capital.

Two days ago, two Afghan gang leaders wrestled from the cars and handcuffed the street, which he thought was behind the export of 40,000 stolen devices in a year.

A man wearing a red football shirt, shorts and flip flops was handcuffed and was taken to a police minibus as part of a large operation aimed at the capital’s telephone theft epidemic.

A small Bulgarian woman with purple sauce was directed to a police minibus waiting for handcuffs from the house

And the Bulgarian couple, shaken from the peaceful suburban beds, is claimed to be part of a street gang that supplies these kings with phones detonated from Londons.

For me, in the early hours of the suburb, Kowloon was another episode in a story that started 6,000 miles away from Hong Kong’s suffocating humidity.

The phones filled with evidence bags in Enfield would have just gone to the same office block at Hung to Road, which I visited with my colleague Miles Dilworth, only two months ago.

We have seen the boxes containing thousands of iPhone gathered from all corners of the Western world and the boxes placed in the office units in KWun Tong’s dizzying skyscrapers.

On the day the Daily Mail visited in July, there were more than a million used phones in the changing origin, situation, brand and model for sale around the building.

The thieves allegedly from Enfield can be between £ 200 to £ 200 to each device they sell to a processor in the UK, but thanks to a sophisticated supply chain and overwhelming overseas demand, phones can bring it to the other side of the world many times.

Less than one -third of the phones stolen in the capital are sent to Algeria, 20 percent are sent in the motherland in China and seven percent in Hong Kong.

As Detective Inspector Mark Gavin explained, Apple does not have much retail footprint in North Africa, so the demand for second -hand devices is high.

There were 30 simultaneous operations in London in the early hours of September 25

The aim of the big operation was to roll the robbers, intermediaries and kingpins responsible for the capital’s phone theft epidemic

In the picture: A team of regional support officers to raid the house of a suspicious telephone thief in Enfield in North London

Equipped with TASERS, a specially adapted human carrier stops the carrier and allegedly claiming that ‘Seagull’ and ‘Heron’ coded gang leaders. The couple is thought to export 40,000 phones played in London to China and Hong Kong

Most of the phones made in China do not allow users to access the Internet freely and create a demand for Europe and USA.

And Hong Kong – with its infrastructure and an international port status – an ideal center for sending millions of phones stolen from all over the world before reaching their final destination.

A businessman from India gave us a collective order to supply the electronic shop home: ‘Hong Kong, the best place in the world to find each model in the best prices. It is perfect if you buy the edge gaps thin but bulk. ‘

This police operation coding Echosteep represented Scotland’s intention to view London as the capital of Europe’s telephone theft.

However, it was a discovery of chance that mobilized the world’s largest telephone theft operation.

The last Christmas eve watched a woman’s stolen iPhone to a warehouse by Heathrow Airport.

He told a security guard, a former metropolitan police officer, and the couple watched a signal in a cardboard box tagged ‘batteries’ connected to Hong Kong.

The woman had a phone in the package – 894 with the other. They were all stolen.

The force built a detailed picture of the sophisticated supply chain of the sophisticated supply chain, which identified the next nine -month -old suspects and fueled an outbreak of 70 million pounds on the streets of England.

In order to participate in the investigation, a team of elite officers who normally investigate firearms and drug crimes were prepared.

On September 20, a man was arrested at Heathrow Airport with ten stolen telephones, two iPads and two rolex clocks.

Kymani Wilson (in the picture) was thrown into jail for peeling his mobile phones while driving with Parkinson.

Heron and Seagull code -named Afghan citizens, stolen phones for a mobile ‘chop shop’ became a specially adapted human carriers caught.

In the picture: Some telephone bundles wrapped in tin foil were seized in Echosteep operation

In the last two weeks, he made 46 arrests about power telephone theft, ordered 49 search and rescued more than 2,000 stolen phones

This person has traveled more than 200 years between London and Algeria in the last two years.

Three days later, two men suspected of pioneering all export operations were arrested in Northeast London.

Heron and Seagull code -named Afghan citizens, stolen phones for a mobile ‘chop shop’ became a specially adapted human carriers.

And two days after Kingpins were detained, simultaneous raids, including the operation at the Enfield house, took place.

In the last two weeks, he made 46 arrests about power telephone theft, ordered 49 search, and saved more than 2,000 stolen phones.

Officers have earned more than £ 200,000 and currently have a total of 4,000 stolen iPhones in the evidence room at the Western London Police Station.

Detectives who have spent almost a year for the investigation, which was greeted by commissioner Sir Mark Rowley as the largest telephone theft operation in the world, can be sure that they have put a large dent in a crime deceiving capital.

However, as long as there are technology giants who refuse to add measures such as ‘Kill Switches’ to the buyers and phones who want to pay large premiums, there will be no place for satisfaction.