By Elias Clure, ABC
Emma Van Der Hoek's new life in London began in the wrong way. Photo: ABC News / Daniel Pannett
Emma Van Der Hoek was walking home, listening to music, texting a friend, when she felt someone brush up beside her.
"The next thing I know, he just snatched my phone out of my hand. It happened very fast," she said.
"I didn't clock what happened until a couple of seconds later."
Van Der Hoek had just moved to London from Sydney when in July she became the victim of a crime now rampant in her new home.
There are claims - including from non-aligned non-government organisation Crush Crime - that about 116,000 mobile phones were stolen in London last year, which equates to roughly one every five minutes.
While figures from the Metropolitan Police contend it is more like 80,000, either way, the numbers have seen London widely dubbed the world's "phone theft capital".
Detective chief inspector Kevin Ives oversees investigations for the City of London Police, a smaller force than the Met, which has jurisdiction over a compact 2.8-square-kilometre central borough.
"It's a crime that's grown in recent years. It's not a small offence, it's dangerous - people are travelling at high speed, snatching the phones out of people's hands," he said.
"Also, people's lives are on their phones, and the way these phones are stolen is that the thieves get access to banking details and other sensitive information.
"If someone steals a phone from someone's hand, then usually all the apps are open, so it means you can then steal all of the things that would be accessible on an open phone."
Authorities say a new smartphone can be worth up to $400 (NZ$456) on the black market, and that people who snatch the phones usually sell them on to organised crime syndicates.
From there, many mobiles can end up in China or North Africa.
Crush Crime has released data from the Met it says was obtained under Freedom of Information laws. It claims about 116,000 phones were stolen in London last year.
The group's founder Lawrence Newport said: "We are in the midst of a phone theft epidemic, and our government is failing to act."
'We do lots of enforcement': Police
This week, London's Metropolitan Police said they had cracked an international gang suspected of smuggling about 40,000 stolen mobiles into China from the United Kingdom in the past year alone.
Dozens of properties were raided as part of the sweeping operation, and 18 people were arrested.
Despite that significant blow, police in the city have faced criticism for not doing enough to track down stolen phones.
Ives said his officers took the offences seriously.
"We do lots of enforcement. We have our detectives trying to find these individuals, crashing down their doors at four o'clock in the morning, putting these people in prison where they belong and getting these phones back to their owners," he said.
City of London Police provided the ABC with footage of police raiding the home of a phone theft syndicate member in the city centre last month.
After breaking down the door and searching through the apartment, police found several bags full of phones.
Detectives are using a variety of tactics to combat the thieves and said last week alone they recovered 3000 phones, which they estimated cost the organised snatching gang more than $6 million.
Tourists are often prime targets, and police are running a public awareness campaign to warn visitors to the city about the looming threat.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated 743,000 Australians had visited the United Kingdom in the past 12 months to 31 July.
While authorities are stepping up their efforts to catch phone thieves, the reality is the vast majority of stolen handsets are not returned.
After alerting the Metropolitan Police to her encounter with a phone snatcher, Van Der Hoek was told there was nothing officers could do and the case was closed.
But she found another way to fight back and turned to social media, posting CCTV of the incident.
The video, which included her unsuccessfully chasing after the thief, sparked an overwhelming response.
Footage of her ordeal clocked up more than 6 million views on TikTok.
"In a way, I hope it's made more people aware and made more people stand up for themselves and stand up to phone thieves, because it's just become so normalised here," she said.
While Van Der Hoek is still enjoying her life in London, theft has left her "on edge".
"Phones are replaceable, but what happened to me, them creeping up behind me and then just snatching it from me was quite scary, and I will probably think about it for a while," she said.
-ABC
