Many iPhones stolen as far apart as New York, Los Angeles 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 retrace his 6,000-mile journey to a place that many locals in Shenzhen, China, refer to as the “Stolen iPhone Building”…
The Feiyang Times Building is known as the place where you can get your iPhone repaired or upgraded, but a Financial Times The report says it is also known to be a market for stolen devices.
The fourth floor of the building has its own specialty: selling used iPhones from Europe and the United States.
Many of the phones sold here are legitimate trade, returned by Western consumers to network operators or phone stores when upgrading to the latest models.
But the tower is also located in a location that Apple community message boards, social media commenters, and phone theft victims have identified as China’s “stolen iPhone building.”
There aren’t many places where people can buy locked phones, but there is a ready market here, which is why many stolen devices end up on the premises.
The report cites the example of a theft victim who used Apple’s Find My feature to track his phone’s journey from the London street where it was stolen to the Feiyang Times building.
Sam Omrani’s iPhone was snatched from his hands by two thieves riding electric bikes – the preferred method as it allows them to ride straight onto pavements to steal phones before making a quick escape. He followed him on a journey of thousands of miles:
- He was kidnapped from his hands in London while answering a WhatsApp message
- He was taken to a cell phone repair shop on a back street a few miles away
- It is transported across several nearby addresses in London
- A week later he appeared in Kowloon, Hong Kong
- Fast transportation to Shenzhen, China
- She ended her journey at the city’s Feiyang Times Building
While unlocked phones are more valuable, the report says that even for locked devices, buyers will be found for almost every component. Sellers of American and European models inside the building claim they have no idea how the phones got there.
Blackmail attempt via iMessage
Since iPhones were locked at the time they were stolen, the report says victims sometimes receive iMessages aimed at blackmailing them into unlocking the devices.
When your iPhone is lost or stolen, it can display a phone number or email address so the finder can return it. The report shows a screenshot of a message sent to the owner of a locked iPhone:
We recycle your old iPhone, we are just recyclers, we are not the ones who steal your phone, if you don’t remove it, the motherboard of your old phone will be sold to other customers, and they may hack your phone, steal your credit card, or contact your family, so we recommend removing it as soon as possible so that we can restore the factory settings and erase all data.
This is of course a scam, as there is no way to get personal data from a locked phone. But it looks scary enough that it might fool non-techies.
Take 9to5Mac
Apple’s security measures, such as Find My and Activation Lock, have significantly reduced the market for stolen iPhones. But as this article shows, there’s no way to completely kill demand.
The most important thing is to use a strong passcode and stolen device protection feature to ensure thieves can’t get something worth much more than your iPhone – your personal data.
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