You can’t catch me! How brazen thieves making up to £15,000 a month stealing phones, bikes and cars in broad daylight boast they ‘ain’t going to be nicked’ as C4 Dispatches uncovers Britain’s unsolved crimewave
This is the moment a phone snatcher boasts ‘I don’t give a f*** about what the police are doing… I ain’t going to get nicked’ – as new figures revealed the Met Police’s shocking failure to tackle thefts and robberies.
Britain’s biggest force has been unable to identify a suspect in a single reported theft from the person, robbery, burglary, bike theft or vehicle crime in 166 neighbourhoods in the past three year – as gangs make up to £15,000 a month.
The police watchdog seized on the figures as evidence that officers ‘aren’t getting the basics right’.
This is emboldening criminals, with one phone snatcher filmed telling Channel 4 Dispatches: ‘I don’t give a f*** about what the police are doing. I don’t care. I ain’t been nicked for it, yeah? And I ain’t going to get nicked. That’s how I look at it.’
A series of videos over recent months have shown gangs of muggers on e-bikes and mopeds snatching phones off unsuspecting London pedestrians – prompting fears criminals increasingly have free reign of the capital’s streets.
Research for Dispatches found 167 areas in England and Wales where police have failed to identify a single suspect in common neighbourhood crimes from 2021 to 2023 – focusing on those with at least 50 unsolved offences. 166 of these areas covered by the Met.
This phone snatcher said: ‘I don’t give a f*** about what the police are doing. I don’t care. I ain’t been nicked for it, yeah? And I ain’t going to get nicked. That’s how I look at it’
Numerous videos have emerged in recent years showing phones being snatched in London’s West End by robbers riding mopeds and e-bikes. This video was filmed on Albany Street earlier this year
Former detective Peter Bleksley said he was ‘appalled’ by the figures, telling MailOnline: ‘You can’t solve anything unless you investigate it, and these crimes are manifestly not being investigated.
‘Victims of crime are ringing up to say they’ve been burgled or had their phone stolen and invariably at the other end they have a call handler asking ”Do you know who did it”, ”Do you have any CCTV?” and if the answers are no it gets put aside.
‘Police officers are not getting off their backside to go to the scene of the crime and investigation.
‘And bear in mind the slippery language that’s being used recently about how ‘We will attend every burglary”. If you get a rookie cop who’s not sufficiently trained in the law they’ll ask the same questions as the call handler will.
‘Will they know about knocking next door and next door from one? Every frontline cop will tell you about a story where they’ve spoken to a neighbour and found an object like a screwdriver.’
Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for London Mayor at the last election, called for a return to ‘community-based policing’.
‘We’ve really got to get a grip of what’s going on. Things are getting worse under Major Khan,’ she told MailOnline.
‘We’re sending out all the wrong signals. Criminals are just running riot. Police need a lot more help and since the Mayor has a £21billion budget, he should be putting his hand in his pocket to fund the police.’
The Dispatches research also showed:
- One neighbourhood in Thurrock, Essex, had the most unsolved vehicle crime, with 1,017 reported offences and 93% going unsolved. Essex Police told the programme that vehicle crime is a priority, that there has been a fall in Thurrock in the past year and they are using specialist officers to deal with vehicle crime.
- In Wood Lane in Rothwell near Leeds, there were 56 burglaries in three years and none were solved. West Yorkshire Police said it has made significant investment in projects that have brought down burglary levels and officers are committed to attending all home burglaries.
- In a 250 yard area around Cambridge railway station, more than 300 bike thefts went unsolved over three years. Cambridgeshire Police said they were working to reduce cycle crime and had brought in several initiatives to do so.
In one area around Oxford Circus and Regent Street there were more than 10,000 thefts from the person in three years, with more than 99% going unsolved.
Dispatches heard insider testimony from an international criminal network that is making between £12,000 and £15,000 a month selling stolen phones to Chinese businesses, where they are sold to be stripped for parts or unlocked for resale.
One Londoner who fell victim to phone theft, Imran Kanji, said: ‘The police said that they weren’t able to progress because they didn’t have any leads, there were no suspects and there was no CCTV that they could look at.
‘So they closed the case and about two weeks later, my phone pings again and it’s in China.’
Dispatches left a bike in Cambridge and filmed it being quickly stolen
The thief initially claimed the bike belonged to his mother before handing it back
The Apple iPhone still had its tracking enabled and it showed up in Shenzhen in an area where electronic goods are traded.
‘It definitely made me feel it was part of a bigger operation,’ said Mr Kanji.
Watchdog Andy Cooke, chief inspector of constabulary, said that low detection rates were a major problem police had to address.
‘The Metropolitan Police, over the last couple of years, have seen unprecedented demand, there is no doubt about that. However, too often the police aren’t getting the basics right,’ he said.
‘Seeing so many neighbourhoods that have got zero per cent detection rates for some of these crimes, it’s not acceptable. If the chances of being caught are so low, that is not a deterrent.’
Dispatches found 300 bike thefts had gone unsolved over three years in one 250 yard area around Cambridge rail station.
Reporters left a bike fitted with a tracker in a theft hotspot in Cambridge and filmed it being stolen.
They then followed the bike as it moved around Cambridge and then went up the M11. They tracked it to a house in Saffron Walden, Essex, where it was put up for sale online just 39 hours after being stolen.
Reporter Isobel Yeung arranged to buy the bike and secretly recorded the meeting with the seller. Initially, he gave her a fake back story, saying: ‘Lovely bike, basically brand new. My mum only used it, I think twice for a bike ride.’
But when she revealed herself to be a journalist who had filmed the theft, the seller admitted that he had bought the bike in Cambridge and gave it back to her. He denied knowing it was stolen.
London‘s high-end shopping districts are a popular target for thieves, with the City of Westminster seeing the highest level of phone theft in the capital
One recent video shows an unsuspecting victim minding her own business when the man clad in black comes up behind her and snatches her mobile before speeding off.
Her attempt to give chase was futile as the thief raced off on an e-bike capable of speeds up to 30 miles per hour.
The brazen theft happened on June 6 on a busy road near Tavistock Square in Marylebone, central London, just a short distance from Euston Station and the British Museum.
Another video from earlier this year showed a cyclist dressed all in black rides up to a group of people standing near the Curzon cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue.
This brazen phone theft happened on 6 June on a busy road near Tavistock Square in Marylebone, central London, just a short distance from Euston Station and the British Museum
London robber Sonny Stringer, 28, snatched an incredible 24 phones in little over an hour. He was caught after being rammed by police and pleaded guilty to theft
The thief slows down as he approaches them before he snatches the phone out of a young woman’s hands and speeds off.
Another crime wave that has affected London in particular are thefts of luxury watches, with the Met recording a 60 per cent rise in incidents last year.
Testimony from one recent trial hearing how one serial offender who stole timepieces worth £65,000 would approach victims and chat to them about South American football.
Mohamed Amoyos, 33, would then grab their watch as soon as their guard was down, Southwark Crown Court heard earlier this month.
High-profile businessman Devin Narang used a summit with Labour’s shadow foreign secretary David Lammy earlier this year to warn that Indian executives are putting off visiting London due to their fears about falling victim to crime.
The Met insists incidents have halved since officers began conducting undercover sting operations in the West End last year.
Commander Owain Richards said: ‘We understand the impact that robbery can have on victims.
‘It’s an invasive and often violent crime and we recognise that there is still much more to do to tackle it as we make London safer.
‘Met officers are targeting resources to hotspot areas, including Westminster and Stratford, with increased patrols and plain clothes officers which deter criminals and make officers more visibly available to members of the community.
‘We encourage people to report as soon as they can whenever they have been a victim of a robbery or theft, so officers can attend the scene and investigate swiftly.’
Earlier this year a video showed a cyclist dressed all in black ride up to a group of people standing near the Curzon cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue in London’s West End
In the video, a cyclist dressed all in black rides up to group of people standing near the Curzon cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue in London’s West End
One of the most obvious and prevalent crimes is shoplifting, which has hit record levels.
This has prompted Labour to vow a crackdown with new legislation reversing changes made a decade ago that deemed thefts under £200 ‘low value’ and less worthy of police attention.
Police forces across England and Wales now vow to attend every burglary, but most are still going unsolved.
Dispatches found one street in the south of Leeds – Wood Lane – where 56 burglaries were recorded in three years – with officers failing to solve a single one.
One victim, Amanda, had cash and jewellery stolen from her home last winter.
She said police were ‘great’ in their initial rapid response to the incident, but she has not heard anything since.
‘They did everything they could do in the first instance,’ she told BBC News.
‘They came out straight away and you had investigators come out to assess the scene within a matter of hours.
‘In terms of anything since, we just presume nothing has happened because we have not heard anything.
The Met insists undercover operations like this one have been responsible for a fall in luxury watch thefts in London. This footage from January shows a thief trying to steal a watch from an undercover policeman
A group of officers quickly arrest the thief as part of the undercover operation
Dispatches found one street in the south of Leeds – Wood Lane – where 56 burglaries were recorded in three years – with officers failing to solve a single one
West Yorkshire Police said its burglary detection rates were in line with other parts of the country, but some offences were unsolved due to a lack of evidence.
The Home Office said: ‘As part of our mission to take back our streets we will restore neighbourhood policing in local communities by delivering 13,000 neighbourhood police and community support officers.
‘The Home Office will take a more active role to improve standards in policing so that charge rates increase, more crimes are solved and justice is delivered for victims rebuilding confidence and trust in policing.’
