One stolen iPhone uncovered a network smuggling thousands of devices to China

A Malwarebytes article explains that Find My can be used to track a stolen device, and that in a Christmas Eve incident a victim’s phone led police to a warehouse near Heathrow Airport containing almost 900 stolen phones destined for Hong Kong. The investigation, named Operation Echosteep, lasted nearly a year and concluded with 46 arrests after raids across 28 locations.

UK police recovered over 2,000 stolen devices, exposing a criminal network smuggling up to 40,000 phones each year, with the confiscated devices ultimately ending up in China. The piece notes that phones can be sold for around £300 each and that thieves sometimes wrap devices in aluminium foil to block tracking signals.

The Financial Times reported in May about a tech entrepreneur named Sam Amrani, whose stolen phone travelled from Kensington, London to a Shenzhen neighbourhood known for its second‑hand phone market. Lawmakers have urged stronger anti‑theft measures, including blocking IMEIs on the GSMA blacklist, and there are calls for tech companies to go further to render stolen devices useless worldwide.