Find My has been used to track stolen iPhones across the world
One user tracking his stolen iPhone has led to the uncovering of a global theft system where it hardly matters that your device is locked.
Increasingly sophisticated thieves have previously been reported using tracking data to steal iPhones before they are delivered. Whether it’s that or snatching iPhones out of people’s hands, though, it appears that at least many stolen devices are then shipped internationally.
According to the Financial Times, they end up in the Huaqiangbei district of Shenzhen, China. It’s an ironic place for them to go, since Shenzhen is around 30 minutes drive from where Foxconn originally manufactures so many of them.
Londoner Sam Amrani tracked his phone to this district, after two men on electric bicycles rode up on either side of him and snatched his iPhone 15 Pro. Amrani used Find My to track the device across several places in London, then a week later in Hong Kong, and then Shenzhen.
Reportedly, it ended up near the Feiyang Times building in the area, which is an office tower that includes businesses selling second-hand iPhones. These businesses can be legitimate, selling traded-in devices, but it’s claimed that it’s also home to firms dealing in stolen iPhones.
There are hundreds of small firms seemingly doing this in the malls around the Feiyang Times building. But it’s inside that tower that traders buy and sell iPhones by the hundreds, reportedly most of them dealers based in Hong Kong.
Some of those iPhones, like Amrani’s, are passcode locked and others are not. Unsurprisingly, the unlocked ones are readily sold.
But surprisingly, even locked ones have a value. Interviewed in Hong Kong, an iPhone seller referred to as Kevin Li, said that “there aren’t many places that have demand for [locked iPhones]… in Shenzhen, there is demand.”
Calling it “a massive market,” Li said that the locked iPhones were probably stolen or snatched in the US. They are sold to Hong Kong and then on to other countries including the Middle East.
Locked iPhones are stripped for parts
When they arrive in Shenzhen, locked iPhones reportedly sell for around 30% of the price of an unlocked one. But even those locked ones have value because they can be stripped for parts, and the parts then sold on.
Li insists that this is the only value of a locked iPhone, and expressly that buyers cannot force their way into ones with passcodes or iCloud locks. But reportedly, social media threads show that iPhone users have sometimes been messaged from those stolen phones.
Such messages are said to include the thieves trying to extort money from them by threatening to remote-wipe their other devices.
Neither Apple nor Shenzhen’s government has commented on the report of this stolen iPhone operation. Hong Kong police said that they “will take appropriate actions where necessary according to actual circumstances and in accordance with the law.”
Londoner Amrani is far from alone in having his iPhone stolen. Separately, in 2023, London’s Metropolitan Police reported that 157 smartphones were stolen each day over the previous 12 months.
That figure was reported as London mayor Sadiq Khan ordered Apple, Google, and others to a meeting to discuss smartphone theft. It has not been reported what the result of the meeting was, but it appeared that Khan was intending to demand that manufacturers add in anti-theft features — which they had already been doing for years.
