May 7, 2006
Following Ghana's phone thieves
Mobile phones stolen in Europe are turning up in Ghana in what is proving to be a massively lucrative criminal business - and then being stolen again by local thieves once they are purchased. The BBC reports.
"We identified that mobile phones which had been reported as stolen by customers in the UK - and were therefore blocked by the networks - were being exported throughout the world for resale and use in other countries, and this obviously included Ghana," Superintendent Eddie Thompson, of the world's only dedicated mobile phone crime unit, based in London, told BBC World.
... But the story of the stolen phone does not end there.
The surge in mobile phone ownership in the country in recent years - some of which has been driven by the availability of stolen European phones - has led to a wave of crime focused solely on snatching the phones from their owners.
Gangs of young boys, usually aged 14-16, ride around the city on "motos" - small motorcycles - targeting people who have handsets in plain sight. They are often able to snatch them swiftly, and at force, before driving off. "
... Many of the stolen phones end up in Accra's Tiptoe Lane, known for its second-hand markets and traders of goods of questionable origin."
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