- The Observer, Sunday May 20 2001
The message will say: 'You are in possession of a stolen mobile phone. Please hand it in at the nearest police station, or you will be arrested. Regards, the Police.' Officers hope the message will irritate thieves into handing in the phones or giving up phone theft altogether.
Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, has given the messaging scheme his backing. It also has the support of manufacturers and phone service providers.
'We're aiming to make phones less attractive to steal, rather than trying to catch the stolen ones,' said Supt Chris Miles of Scotland Yard's crime policy unit. 'If you have stolen the phone, [under this plan] it becomes worthless.'
In March of this year a record 2,562 phones were stolen in the London area and there are on average only 4,100 street robberies a month in London. Last week The Observer revealed robbery was continuing to rise by an average of 11 per cent a year. Police have linked the increase to the theft of mobile phones on the street - particularly by children, from children. Thieves target both increasingly expensive handsets and the valuable Sim cards inside - the microchips containing the phone number, account details and user's list of programmed numbers.
'We can target both the stolen phone handset and the Sim card inside,' said Miles. 'If the card and phone are separated, there is technology available to let us send messages to the handset, whatever Sim card is in it, and the Sim card, whatever phone it's currently in.'
Dutch police implemented a similar scheme six months ago with extraordinary success. They recorded a 57 per cent drop in phone theft when they started messaging stolen phones every 10 minutes for the first few days after their theft.
Sir John Stevens was so impressed when he saw a demonstration of the scheme in Holland a fortnight ago that he told policy officials at Scotland Yard to introduce a similar scheme in London as quickly as possible.
