Stolen moments

WITH the latest mobile phone now the hottest fashion accessory it is hardly surprising there should be a thriving black market in them. The case of the 19-year-old London woman shot in the head by a mugger out to steal her mobile is the most appalling example. But hers was just one of 700,000 mobiles stolen last year, according to the Home Office.

More than 1,000 were stolen in York in 2001 - and in North Yorkshire nearly 600 mobiles were nicked in just two months, November and December.

Worst of all, figures show those most at risk of being robbed are teenagers - and it's often teenagers who are doing the stealing.

"A substantial chunk of the crimes are instances of playground bullying, with kids stealing from others in school or just outside the school gates," a Home Office spokesman said.

This is a new form of crime where the young are the victims and perpetrators.

Many York schools operate a no mobile phones policy - and police in York and North Yorkshire stress there has been nothing like the attack on the London 19-year-old in this region. Most mobiles stolen here disappear as a result of thefts from bags or car seats rather than muggings.

But that will be little comfort to a teenager who has just splashed more than £100 on a state-of-the-art pay-as-you-go phone, only to have it stolen a few days later.

Ian Ward, who runs a stall at York market repairing mobiles and selling accessories, can attest to a black market in stolen mobiles in the city. "It's a major problem. People bring phones to us that have quite obviously been knocked off," he says.

Ian is adept at spotting stolen mobiles, and always takes the "appropriate action" when offered one. But if he is being approached by criminals keen to fence stolen mobiles, it is a certain bet other, less scrupulous, people are too.

So if theft of pay-as-you-go mobiles is becoming such a problem, why isn't more being done to prevent it?

There are two ways to make life more difficult for the criminals - by making it harder to steal mobiles and by making them worthless once they have been stolen.

Police in North Yorkshire are taking a lead by urging mobile phone-users to take more care with their property.

PC Jon Palmer, York police's schools' liaison officer, says youngsters should beware of showing off when they have got the latest model. "It's all about keeping up with everybody else," he says. "But there are kids nicking from other kids, and if you're showing off the new model this attracts unwanted attention."

Police advice is to never leave your phone lying around, keep it out of view when you are not using it and mark your postcode on it with an indelible pen. The best way of stopping the surge in nicked mobile phones would be to make them worthless once stolen.

Mobile phone companies are good at barring customers' pay-as-you-go accounts once they report their phone stolen. It should be a simple matter of reporting the theft to your network and giving them your PIN and your SIM (memory) card numbers.

But while that will protect you against paying for calls made by the thief, it won't make the stolen phone useless.

To do that you also need to keep a record of your phone's IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number - a number unique to your handset. The IMEI number is usually found on a label near the battery compartment, or can be obtained by dialling *#06#.

If, when you report your phone stolen, you give your IMEI number as well, it may enable your operator to 'blacklist' all calls from that phone. In theory, it should mean no calls from that phone will be accepted - making the handset a useless piece of junk.

Unfortunately, it is not that simple - which is why the Home Office is so angry with some sectors of the mobile phone industry.

While some big network operators, such as Virgin, One To One and Orange, do keep registers of IMEI numbers and can blacklist calls made from stolen phones, BT Cellnet and Vodafone do not. So if one of their pay-as-you-go phones is stolen, the thief can simply take out the existing SIM card and replace it with a new one. They will then be able to use the phone.

The problem is even worse than that. Even the networks which do keep a register of IMEI numbers reported as stolen only monitor calls made using their own network. It's an easy matter these days to adapt a phone bought from one network so it can be used with other networks.

So even if yours was an Orange phone and you had reported the IMEI number to Orange, a thief could easily use it for calls to another network without being detected.

The Home Office has decided to get heavy with Vodafone and BT Cellnet in an attempt to make them fall into line with other operators who operate IMEI anti-theft measures - and is even considering legislation to force them to do so. "Everyone in the industry needs to play their part in preventing their customers becoming victims of crime," a spokesman said.

But BT Cellnet today hit back, insisting a comprehensive register of stolen IMEI numbers is not the solution. A new generation of mobile phone 'hackers' is now able to easily reprogram a particular handset to give it a new IMEI number, one that has not been reported as stolen, a BT Cellnet spokeswoman said - meaning the phone could continue to be used even if the theft and IMEI number were reported.

Perdita Patterson, editor of What Mobile? magazine, accepts this is so. "If I'm a criminal and I've just stolen a phone, the first thing I do is take it to an evil little rocket scientist who will fiddle about with the software and will change the serial (IMEI) number," she says.

Even so, a proper register of stolen IMEI numbers would be an important step in the right direction, she insists.

Ian Ward, on his market stall in York, agrees. If a thief has pinched a mobile, and changed the IMEI number, he will need to change the number carried on the label on the phone as well.

That's how Ian can spot a stolen phone. The first thing he does when offered a secondhand mobile is look for the IMEI number on the back. If it's not there, or has been tampered with, he knows chances are the phone is dodgy.

"Any person not wanting to buy stolen property wouldn't buy that," he says. "They would know it to be stolen."

In other words, unless a thief is stealing it for personal use, it would be virtually worthless. Which seems an effective deterrent.

Updated: 10:38 Thursday, January 10, 2002