Phone shops brace for spike in robberies as iPhone 15 goes on sale
Mobile phone retailers are preparing for a spike in organised robberies when Apple’s new iPhone 15 goes on sale next week.
Thefts involving a group of people targeting a shop for goods are sometimes referred to as “steaming” and there were more than 300 incidents of this in telecoms stores last year.
Half of these incidents took place in the last three months of 2022, after an iPhone launch, according to data published by the Crime Communications Strategy Group (CCSG).
Three UK are hoping to combat the rise in robberies by rolling out watermarking technology, in partnership with Selecta DNA and The National Business Crime Centre.
This involves unique codes being placed on high-value products, making them easier for police to track if they are stolen.
Mark Ward, CCSG’s chair, says the group are “making no secret of the fact we are marking phones”.
“It’s a deterrent,” he continues. “We are going to have signs in our stores and we are hoping that will deter people taking them in the first place.”
Apple’s iPhone 15 will go on sale on Friday 22 September. The most expensive version comes with a hefty £1,199 price tag.
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Apple’s iPhone will launch in stores next week
Joel Thompson, store manager for Three UK’s flagship store on London’s Oxford Circus, was one of the staff members at a training session on the watermarking technology.
“The worst experience I had was when about four people came into the store, and you could see them really aggressively taking the phones,” he says, adding that this incident took place while customers were browsing. “They also told the staff to step back and don’t get involved.”
Mr Thompson adds that in the eight years he’s worked for Three UK, “the culture has changed” and thieves have become “more aggressive”.
He also questions if the rise in these crimes could be linked to the cost of living crisis.
CCTV footage shows a gang of thieves stealing an entire stand pf phones from a Three UK store
Paul Fagg, a police inspector working for the National Business Crime Centre, says: “You have got a group of sometimes grown adults running into a store, threatening and intimidating [people].
“We know first-hand the effect that leaves on the victim and staff in that store. So we are very much trying to change the message and the mentality around that business crime is [a] victimless crime.”
Three UK staff have been advised to step back if a steaming incident occurs but business owners who run smaller, independent phone shops cannot afford the huge losses which often occur as a result of these robberies.
Muhammad Fahad, 40, experienced this for himself when men armed with hammers entered his Fone City shop in St Albans earlier this year.
Mr Fahad has footage of the masked robbers entering his shop
Mr Fahad tried to fight one of the men off. He says: “I just pushed him then he took a hammer from his arm or something. Then he hammered on my hand so then I told myself, ‘just let them be’.”
Five months on, he is still dealing with the consequences. “Basically they took everything, everything. More than £10,000 [worth of products],” he says.
“I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to recover from that pain, emotionally and financially.”
He is calling for more help from police to protect small businesses like his.
Paedophile Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins has died after being attacked in prison.
Watkins, 48, was serving a 29-year jail term for multiple sexual offences, including serious crimes against young children and babies at HMP Wakefield, in West Yorkshire.
He was attacked with a knife by another inmate on Saturday morning, sources have confirmed.
West Yorkshire Police said two men, aged 25 and 43, have been arrested on suspicion of murder.
A police van outside Wakefield prison. Pic: YappApp
Watkins was pronounced dead at the scene after prison staff reported the assault to police.
The prison went into lockdown in the immediate aftermath of the incident, sources added.
A Prison Service spokesperson said they could not comment while the police investigate.
Watkins was previously stabbed in an incident at the same prison in 2023, suffering non life-threatening injuries after he was reportedly taken hostage by three other inmates before being freed by prison officers six hours later.
He was sentenced in December 2013 to 29 years in prison, with a further six years on licence, after admitting 13 sex offences, including the attempted rape of a fan’s baby.
Watkins performing in 2004. Pic: PA
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He also encouraged a second fan to abuse her child during a webcam chat and secretly stashed child sexual abuse videos, some of which he had made himself.
At the time, police described him as a “committed, organised paedophile”.
Having found fame in Welsh rock band Lostprophets, Watkins was arrested after his Pontypridd home was searched on orders of a drug warrant in September 2012.
A large number of computers, mobile phones and storage devices were seized during the search.
When sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court, the singer was told he was being given an extended sentence – and a judge said his crimes “plumbed new depths of depravity”.
After being caught with a mobile phone behind bars in 2019, he told a court that he was locked up with “murderers, mass murderers, rapists, paedophiles, serial killers – the worst of the worst”.
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