Many stolen iPhones across the US and UK don't end up where you might think.
Typically, you'd think stolen phones are quickly resold on the black market or stripped for parts in local shops. But it turns out that stolen Apple devices, as far apart as London and Los Angeles, end up in exactly the same place.
According to a report by the Financial Times, one victim in London had his iPhone 15 Pro ripped from his hands while replying to a WhatsApp message, by thieves riding electric bikes.
Thanks to Apple's Find My feature, he was able to track the journey of his phone from its stolen spot to a mobile phone repair shop a few miles away before being transported through several nearby addresses.
Advert
The report revealed that the iPhone appeared in Kowloon, Hong Kong, before ending its journey at the Feiyang Times building in the city of Shenzhen, China.
To many locals, the Feiyang Times is known as 'the stolen iPhone building.' In fact, the structure is allegedly an iPhone repair and upgrade shop, but the FT report unveiled that it's also a common marketplace for stolen devices.
"The fourth floor of the building has its own specialism: selling second hand iPhones from Europe and the US," the FT report reads. "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.
Advert
"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 willing to handle locked iPhones due to security features like Apple’s Activation Lock. But Feiyang Times seemingly extracts value from nearly any iPhone, locked or not, and strips them for valuable parts.
Some victims even claimed they received iMessages blackmailing them into unlocking their devices.
Advert
These messages often pose as 'recyclers' threatening to leak personal data, though there’s no way to extract data from a properly locked iPhone.
One such screenshotted message from the report read: "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."
Thankfully, Apple’s features like Activation Lock and Stolen Device Protection have made it much harder to profit from stealing iPhones. But as long as there’s a demand for parts and a way to resell them, it’s unlikely the global demand will ever dry up completely.
The best solution is to always use a strong passcode and enable Stolen Device Protection to keep your data safe.