LONDON, Feb 17 : Mayor of London Sadiq Khan on Tuesday unveiled plans to invest an additional 4.5 million pounds and set up a new unit as part of a major crackdown on mobile phone thefts and snatchings in the UK capital.
The new mobile phone Police Command Cell, to be based in London’s West End, is designed to coordinate intelligence and respond to phone snatchings in real time.
The new funding is aimed at boosting the Metropolitan Police’s package of measures, including enforcement blitzes, proactive targeting of known offenders, the use of drones and new specialist police trained to use e-bikes to pursue phone snatchers.
“We’re taking bold action to make the West End and the rest of London a no-go area for phone thieves,” said Khan.
“Far too many Londoners have been the victim of phone theft and I’m determined to stamp it out. We have made real progress reducing high volume crime — but I recognise the personal impact of mobile phone theft and how awful it is when someone’s photographs, contacts, messages and personal information is stolen,” he said.
The mayor said the proposed bespoke unit will work to smash the phone gangs by “taking out gang bosses as well as robbers and snatchers”.
“This funding will be invested in more zero-tolerance enforcement blitzes, and new technology like drones and Sur-Ron bikes which are turbocharging the Met’s effort to bear down and be tough on mobile phone crime and make London’s streets safer,” added Khan.
The announcement came alongside latest police data claiming that robberies were down 46 per cent in key hotspots in London and thefts were down by more than a quarter.
The Mayor of London’s office said that “record funding” had doubled the number of police officers in the West End, the central tourist hub of London, leading to a 25 per cent reduction in theft.
The Metropolitan Police claims that mobile phone theft in London has fallen from 81,365 in 2024 to around 71,391 in 2025 — a drop of 12.3 per cent, with 10,000 fewer mobile phones being stolen.
“The mayor wants to go further in eliminating the scourge of mobile phone theft as part of ongoing work from City Hall and the Metropolitan Police to make London’s streets safer.
“The mayor recognises the personal impact of high-volume crime such as mobile phone theft and is proposing additional funding for the Metropolitan Police in his final draft Budget to make the capital a no-go-area for thieves and robbers,” the Mayor’s office said, ahead of the draft budget submission on Wednesday.
Under the proposal, the Violence Reduction Unit will also receive new funding for its Reducing Robbery programme and help Trading Standards and the Met to create a Stolen Phone Retail Taskforce to crack down on shops that buy and sell stolen phones and support more enforcement activity.
This latest investment is said to build on the “huge success” of the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Reckoning — an intelligence-led initiative focusing on organised criminal groups (OCGs) responsible for the theft and handling of large volumes of devices, stolen through various methods including personal robbery.Â
So far, Operation Reckoning has disrupted a major criminal network suspected to have smuggled up to 40,000 stolen phones from the UK to China and is responsible for up to 40 per cent of phones stolen in London.
The ongoing clampdown, which sees the Met Police using drones and specialised Sur-Ron e-bikes, has seen hundreds of criminals arrested with thousands of handsets seized, the Mayor’s City Hall office said.
Under Operation Reckoning, Met Police officers are said to have made 248 arrests related to phone theft and seized about 770 stolen phones during a four-week blitz.
In December last year, enhanced “winter nights” policing in hotspot areas across London is also said to have led to crime reductions.
According to official data from the London Mayor’s office, theft dropped by 1,278 offences compared with the three-year average, reflecting a 26 per cent fall; robbery of personal property decreased by 269 offences, a reduction of 46 per cent; and violence with injury fell by 159 offences, representing a 33 per cent improvement.) PTI)
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