“Don’t want no Samsung”: London’s phone thieves get picky
Plus: Scroll down to see what might be the strangest new artwork in the capital and read more on our investigations into the capital's landlords.
Sam was walking past a Royal Mail depot in south London in January when his path was blocked by a group of eight men.
“I tried to move to let them pass, but the last guy blocked the path,” the 32-year-old told London Centric. “They started pushing me and hitting me, telling me to give them everything.”
The thieves took Sam’s phone, his camera and even the beanie hat off his head. After checking Sam had nothing else on him, they started to run off.
What happened next was a surprise. With most of the gang already heading down the Old Kent Road, one turned around and handed Sam back his Android phone.
The thief bluntly told him why: “Don’t want no Samsung.”
“If anything I feel a bit rejected”
Anyone who has had their phone snatched knows it’s a crime that it can be over in a few seconds and leave you feeling completely helpless. One minute you’re walking down Oxford Street checking WhatsApp, the next you’re watching helplessly as your device starts its tinfoil-wrapped journey to markets in Algeria or China, possibly via an overnight stint in a flowerbed.
While it might feel like London’s phone thieves will indiscriminately take any device they can get their hands on, there are a growing number of indicators that many of them are only interested in Apple iPhones.
Multiple capital-dwelling Android users who shared their stories with London Centric said they had been on an emotional journey after they were mugged — only to have their device handed back.
One of them was Mark, who was sitting outside his workplace in Hackney when he heard the sudden whoosh of an e-bike coming from behind him at speed. Suddenly his Samsung Galaxy was lifted from his hand by a young man on the bike.
“I didn’t realise what happened immediately but as soon as I did, I went after him.” But with little chance of catching the thief on foot, Mark ultimately gave up — only to be amazed by what happened next: “I saw him stop, look at my phone, then throw it on the floor. He cycled off and I retrieved my phone.”
As the thief didn’t throw it with force there was “no damage”, he said.
That is, other than the harm caused to Mark’s ego: “If anything I feel a bit rejected. My poor phone.”
“The resale value is what thieves are most interested in”
The UK phone market is split broadly evenly, with around half of users owning an iPhone and half using an Android device, which are often cheaper.
If thefts were random — not impossible if they are carried out by someone speeding down a street at 30mph on an illegal e-bike — you’d expect the number of stolen devices to be split broadly down the middle.
Yet the limited data we do have, combined with the testimony of experts and the experience of ordinary Londoners, points towards a clear pro-iPhone bias among the capital’s thieves.
Jake Moore, an advisor for cybersecurity firm ESET, told London Centric that it’s simply because iPhones are worth more: “Apple devices have a higher secondhand market value and it makes more economic sense to pursue these more sought-after phones rather than cheaper models with a lower secondhand price,” he said.
Moore said that the security features on Androids and iPhones are similar, making it unlikely that Apple handsets are being targeted because they are easier to unlock: “Fundamentally, the resale value is what thieves are most interested in.”
Both the Metropolitan police and the City of London police, its sister force in the square mile, have been targeting the organised criminals responsible for phone theft in recent months. Neither had data to hand on the split between iPhone and Android thefts, although one police source said they were aware of thieves discarding older models of phones. The thinking is that there’s no point being charged over something with limited value.
Back in the mid 2010s, the Home Office published two reports into phone theft across the UK, as part of a research project that has since been abandoned. Buried inside the dense publications was an attempt to construct a phone theft index showing which model had a disproportionate chance of getting taken. iPhones were constantly at the top of the list, even before the development of the global criminal networks that specialise in shipping thousands of Apple devices to global markets.
“I thought he was trying to show me his music”
Sometimes the rejection of the Android device can border on farcical, especially when thieves try to use social engineering rather than violence to obtain a phone.
London Centric reader Simon was walking down Brockley high street earlier this year when a man caught his eye from across the road: “He did it in a very friendly way, as you might if you’d spotted a really good old friend who you haven’t seen in ages.”
The man “bounded across the road with this very friendly demeanour” and struck up a conversation, before asking if Simon had Spotify: “At that point I thought he was trying to show me his music, like when someone tries to sell you a CD they’ve burned of their latest musical project in a guerilla marketing way.”
“The guy was in his 20s, but there was this kid lingering behind him, just looking expectantly.”
Simon, keen to support a local musician, got out his phone to open Spotify. At this point the man saw that he was using a Samsung Galaxy, dropped all interest, and began walking away. It was then that Simon realised that, rather than this a cultural exchange, he was actually in the middle of a potential mugging that had been averted by his choice of mobile.
He overhead the would-be thief explaining to his apparent accomplice why they were giving up: “Phone’s dead, innit.”
Is the strangest new public artwork in London generated by artificial intelligence?
A giant Christmas artwork depicting hordes of disturbing animals and uncanny-looking people having a feast by a wintery river has recently appeared in Kingston upon Thames. What less clear is whether misfiring artificial intelligence was used to create the enormous dystopia — or if the creator simply intended to fill a wall with Hieronymous Bosch-style creations.
At first glance the artwork, which covers a massive wall above a branch of Bill’s restaurant in a shopping centre on the banks of the Thames, looks relatively normal. But zoom in and you’ll notice a one legged dog-cum-chicken, a distorted snowman standing on water, and humans blending into the bodies of animals.
After images were posted on Reddit, some of which are reproduced here with permission from the original user, London Centric immediately travelled to south west London to try to understand what was going on.
The true scale of the artwork’s strangeness, stretching across 10 metres of wall, was overwhelming.
The local council denied any involvement in its creation and directed our questions to the shopping centre’s owners, who have said it was “inspired by the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder”.
Suspicions that AI may have been involved in its creation remain unconfirmed at the time of publication. Not that it’s stopped people speculating.
Toby, a man in his early 30s who was out for an evening walk across Kingston, told us he thought it was clear what was responsible for the image: “It’s just so lazy to use AI for this.”
Another passerby, when asked for their opinion, took one look and responded “fuck sake”.
“I strongly believe lives are at stake”: The Loughborough Estate row gets even weirder
Last month London Centric reported on the toxic battle for control of the 1,200-home Loughborough Estate near Brixton. It is run by a board headed by Peter Shorinwa, who previously accused Lambeth Council of attempting to assassinate him in order to regain control of the estate.
With some residents trying to remove him from his position, Shorinwa recently spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on gifts, including branded leather goods, to be handed out to locals. Residents were due to attend an upcoming annual general meeting, where they would have the opportunity to ask management face-to-face how millions of pounds of service fees are being spent and why chemicals were allegedly stored in a community centre.
However, this weekend, Shorinwa sent a printed letter to thousands of residents telling them the meeting will instead be held on a Zoom call.
“We must not allow the devil and the people used by him to get their evil wishes across,” he explained.
Shorinwa claimed in the letter he could not meet residents face-to-face because “we don’t want any stabbing or gunshot in our Estate through the actions of some Lambeth staffs and its cohort [sic]”. He criticised “the pandemonium caused by this aggressive and vocal handful” who he said were encouraging “persons to carry out harm on fellow residents” by asking the council to intervene: “I strongly believe lives are at stake [and] for these reasons we will not be holding a face-face AGM because life is precious.”
One resident in favour of council intervention told London Centric: “It is absurd that the Loughborough Estate is still being run by the clearly deranged Peter Shorinwa.”
We R Blighty, the much-criticised fundraiser featured in a past edition of London Centric, has been yet again found guilty of illegal fundraising in the City of London. Despite this they continue to trade as usual and have been spotted all over the capital in the last week — having switched to selling a magazine to sidestep fundraising laws.
Residents plead to keep homes away from a “dishonest” man who poses a “significant risk to the public”
Yards away from Columbia Road flower market sits Tomlinson House, a post-war social housing block. Inside, residents are making a last-ditch bid to stop it from being privatised by a property developer who is threatening to sue them for £1.5m if they disrupt the deal.
The residents of Tomlinson Close spoke to London Centric after reading our investigation into the developer James Gold, who was described by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors as a “dishonest” individual who poses a “significant risk to the public”.
On Wednesday, Tower Hamlets Council is poised to hand over ownership of the building to a company controlled by Gold. The residents are making a desperate plea for local and national politicians reading this newsletter to intervene at the 11th hour to stop the sale — and want to issue a warning to other Londoners tempted by similar offers.
London Centric is the only news outlet to have covered the activities of Gold, a legally-trained property developer with a string of failed businesses behind him. In April we revealed the legal loophole Gold is using to take control of council-owned housing blocks across London before transferring their ownership to tax haven companies controlled by his mother.
Leaseholders in Tomlinson Close were among those who signed up to one of Gold’s schemes. He promised to pay a modest cash payment and handle the legal paperwork to take ownership of their social housing block away from the local council. In return he would gain the right to build an extra floor of flats on the roof of the existing property. Now, on the eve of the deal, the residents claim Gold is trying to impose drastically worse terms at the last minute — and threatening to sue them for millions of pounds if they don’t agree. The leaseholders argue they have been duped and risk being left destitute. Gold did not reply to a request for comment on this claim.
Pam, a leaseholder who has lived in the dilapidated building for 33 years, told us: “At my age I don’t need this. Not knowing the financial implications especially when on a fixed income has caused me many sleepless nights.”
Today London Centric is removing the paywall from the original piece of reporting. Our members funded the investigation but we now want to ensure everyone can read it for free, due to the strong public interest in keeping Londoners informed about Gold’s actions.
Thanks to all the London Centric subscribers who made this edition possible. All of our best stories come from our community of readers — please do get in touch if you’ve got a tip we should be looking into via WhatsApp or email.
I’ve got an older, smaller iPhone (12 mini) and apparently these are also phone thief repellent as had the experience of it being snatched out of my hand only to be tossed onto the pavement further up the street. I had the out-of-body experience of hearing myself yelling “thank you!” at the retreating thief for this pleasure
I've had my phone snatched twice, and dropped twice. Either they fumbled it or didn't want it. It's an old Google pixel. Not a scratch on it - can recommend!