Apple’s Find My feature is immensely useful. If you’ve ever been out for a wild night of drinking and wake up the next morning without your phone, Find My is there. If you are in a hurry and dash out of your Uber only to later feel a suspicious absence in your pocket, Find My is there. And, if you’re a British law enforcement team conducting a probe into a massive iPhone smuggling ring in the heart of London, Find My is also, apparently, there.
The BBC reports that U.K. cops recently broke up a phone-smuggling ring involving tens of thousands of devices. How did they accomplish that? The original break in the case involved a person whose phone was stolen, but who managed to trace the device to a London warehouse. We are left to assume that the tracking was possible thanks to Apple’s handy iOS geo-tracking service.
“It was actually on Christmas Eve and a victim electronically tracked their stolen iPhone to a warehouse near Heathrow Airport,” Detective Inspector Mark Gavin told the BBC. “The security there was eager to help out, and they found the phone was in a box, among another 894 phones.”
That initial incident eventually led cops to a bigger bust: another 2,000 stolen phones, and a number of arrests. 9to5Mac notes that cops interdicted several shipments to the same warehouse, which then gave investigators DNA samples tied to potential suspects in the case. Subsequent investigation then led to raids on dozens of residences, and as of Monday, 18 people had been arrested in connection with the ring, which is suspected of smuggling the phones to China. Gizmodo reached out to police for more information.
According to cops, tens of thousands of phones are stolen in London every year, and the recently arrested gang may have been responsible for a large number of them. “This group specifically targeted Apple products because of their profitability overseas,” Gavin told the Associated Press. “We discovered street thieves were being paid up to 300 pounds ($403) per handset and uncovered evidence of devices being sold for up to $5,000 in China.”
Crooks in Britain may have even begun to pivot from selling drugs to selling stolen phones. “We’re hearing that some criminals are stopping dealing drugs and moving on to the phone business because it’s more lucrative,” Policing Minister Sarah Jones told the BBC. “If you steal a phone and it’s worth hundreds of pounds, you can understand why criminals who are one step ahead and want to exploit new crimes are turning to that world.”
