Many iPhones stolen in places as far apart as London, LA, and London end up in a single building in China, where they are resold or stripped for parts.
One victim whose iPhone 15 Pro was snatched from his hands in the street was able to track its 6,000-mile journey to the place many locals in Shenzhen, China, refer to as “the stolen iPhone building” …
The Feiyang Times building is known as a place where you can get your iPhone repair or upgraded, but a Financial Times report says that it is also well-known as a marketplace for stolen devices.
The fourth floor of the building has its own specialism: selling second hand iPhones from Europe and the US.
Many of the phones sold here are legitimate trade-ins, returned by western consumers to network operators or phone shops when upgrading to the latest models.
But the tower also sits at a location that Apple community message boards, social media commenters and victims of phone theft have identified as China’s “stolen iPhone building”.
There aren’t many places where people will buy locked phones, but there is a ready market here, which is why so many stolen devices end up in the building.
The report cites the example of one theft victim who used Apple’s Find My feature to track the journey of his phone from the London street where it was stolen to the Feiyang Times building.
Sam Amrani’s iPhone was snatched from his hands by two thieves riding electric bikes – a favored method as it allows them to ride right onto sidewalks to snatch phones before making a rapid getaway. He tracked it on a journey of thousands of miles:
- Snatched from his hands in London while replying to a WhatsApp message
- Taken to a backstreet mobile phone repair shop a few miles away
- Transported through several nearby London addresses
- A week later, appeared in Kowloon, Hong Kong
- Quickly transported to Shenzhen, China
- Ended its journey at the Feiyang Times building in the city
While unlocked phones are more valuable, the report says that even for locked devices buyers will be found for almost every component. Sellers of US and European models within the building claim to have no idea how the phones ended up there.
Attempted blackmail via iMessage
Where iPhones were locked at the time they were stolen, the report says victims sometimes receive iMessages intended to blackmail them into unlocking the devices.
When you put an iPhone into lost or stolen mode, it can display a phone number or email address to enable a finder to return it. The report shows a screengrab of a message sent to the owner of a locked iPhone:
Your old iphone is recycled by us, we are just recycling merchants, we are not the ones who steal your phone, if you don’t remove it, your old phone motherboard will be sold to other customers, maybe they will hack your phone or steal your credit card, or contact your family, so we recommend you remove it as soon as possible so we can restore the factory Settings and erase all data.
This is, of course, a bluff – there is no way to obtain personal data from a locked phone. But it sounds scary enough that it might fool non-techies.
9to5Mac’s Take
Apple’s security measures, like the Find My app and Activation Lock, have significantly reduced the market for stolen iPhones. But as this piece illustrates, there’s no way to kill the demand altogether.
The most important thing is to use a strong passcode and the Stolen Device Protection feature to ensure thieves can’t get their hands on something worth way more than your iPhone – your personal data.
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