ROBBERY: How thousands of ‘UK used’ phones end up for sale at Nigerian market
Chilling footages from inside Britain’s moped gangs has revealed how masked thugs device various dangerous means to steal phones from terrified pedestrians.
More often than not, it has been speculated that most of the stolen phones end up on the shelves of the Nigeria open market.
According to reports, the mobile phones, seized by moped thugs are shipped 4,500 miles to be sold for up to £560 (approximately N201,600) to Nigeria’s tech-starved middle classes.
In 2016 there were 446,000 UK phone thefts. In London alone there were 60,000 mobile thefts and robberies, almost two-thirds of them, iPhones.
Below are some of the violent means moped thugs use to snatch phones from their victims:
Moped gang uses acid to steal mobile phones:
Recently, a moped gang which uses acid and swords to steal mobile phones from pedestrians have revealed how they pick their victims in an explosive BBC documentary.
According to the source, “hiding behind fearsome masks, the criminals brag about the ease of stealing £650 iPhones from oblivious passersby, comparing to it ‘stealing candy from a baby.”
Moped thugs use bats, knives, swords:
Many moped thugs use ‘bats, knives, swords’, to snatch phones from pedestrians waiting at a crossing or bus stops and those wearing headphones.
Most of the muggings are committed by gangs on stolen vehicles and officers have seen a spike in moped thefts which has rocketed by 41 per cent in the last 12 months.
