Phone Theft Epidemic: France’s 600,000 Missing Mobiles Fuel North African Black Market

Last May, while celebrating the Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League victory on the Champs-Élysées, Hugo Niverts had his phone snatched from his hands in the crowd. "In a split second, he steals it from my hand to take my phone and I’ve never been able to find a trace or a shadow of someone. At that moment, anger rises up," the young man told France 2. Despite his complaint, he never got his device back. What’s more, his insurance refused to reimburse him the 1,200 euros his smartphone was worth.

Generally, these stolen phones leave neighborhoods like Barbès-Rochechouart in Paris, where thieves resell them to fences. These intermediaries serve as a bridge between the pickpockets on French streets and the final buyers. In a few days, these devices end up in Morocco or Algeria. Lyon student Victoria Da Silva Gonçalves had a bitter experience with this. After her smartphone was stolen on a tram, she was able to track her device thanks to geolocation. "Honestly, I didn’t expect it. About two weeks later, I see exactly the neighborhood where my phone is in Algeria," she testified.

In Tangier, Morocco, a phone repairman who participates in this trafficking explains that rather than reselling the stolen devices directly, he prefers to dismantle them. "We just buy them for the parts. There are cameras, microphones, vibrators, the casing. It sells at a good price," he develops. The phenomenon is growing in France, where 600,000 mobile phones are stolen each year, in stores or on the street.

Faced with the scale of the problem, law enforcement is multiplying operations. Two weeks ago, in the Lyon region, gendarmes dismantled a network and arrested 14 people suspected of having stolen hundreds of phones worth an estimated total of 1 million euros. These criminal networks are well organized. "The offenders are recruited via encrypted messaging and act on orders. If some teams are arrested, they are quickly renewed without the phenomenon being able to be stopped," explains the national gendarmerie.