A London court has sentenced two Afghan nationals and one Indian national to a combined 25 years in prison after convicting them over one of the United Kingdom’s largest organized mobile phone trafficking networks, which smuggled more than 62,000 stolen smartphones worth an estimated £181 million to China and Dubai.
The Metropolitan Police described the group as part of the largest mobile phone trafficking network ever dismantled in the UK. Investigators said the operation handled thousands of stolen iPhones and other smartphones taken from victims across London before exporting them overseas through a sophisticated criminal supply chain.
According to the Metropolitan Police, Amir Khadikhil, 35, Ismat Miakhil, 33, and Mansoor Mohammad, 30, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to receive and handle stolen goods and participating in the activities of an organized crime group. The court ruled that the network’s operations were carried out on a “large financial scale” and were “highly organized and sophisticated.”
Police said the gang paid street thieves up to £300 for each stolen phone before shipping the devices abroad, where some were reportedly resold for as much as $5,000 in China. Investigators estimate the group was responsible for trafficking around 40,000 stolen phones to China during 2024 and 2025 alone, roughly 40 percent of all mobile phones stolen in London during that period.
The investigation began in December 2024 after police discovered boxes containing hundreds of smartphones at a warehouse near Heathrow Airport that were about to be shipped to Hong Kong. Officers said one theft victim tracked a stolen phone to the warehouse using its location services, leading investigators to uncover the wider trafficking operation.
Police seized more than 5,000 mobile phones, mostly iPhones, valued at approximately £5.5 million during searches linked to the suspects. Officers also recovered more than £44,000 in cash from a grocery store in London’s Leyton area that investigators said was being used to store stolen devices wrapped in aluminum foil to block Wi-Fi and SIM card signals and prevent tracking.
Authorities said Khadikhil and Miakhil arrived in the UK from Afghanistan in 2019 and later applied for asylum, while Mansoor Mohammad entered Britain from India on a visa before also seeking asylum. Prosecutors said the criminal case was unrelated to their immigration status and focused solely on their alleged role in the trafficking network.
During searches of Miakhil’s mobile phone, investigators found messages documenting payments totaling more than £243,000 to suppliers of stolen phones between December 2024 and May 2025. Police also said Khadikhil and Miakhil were wearing necklaces holding SIM card removal tools when they were arrested in September 2025.
The Metropolitan Police said the investigation, known as Operation Aquastep, resulted in 14 arrests, the seizure of more than 10,000 stolen phones and approximately £250,000 in cash. Around 1,000 recovered phones have since been returned to their owners.
Police say smartphone theft has become one of London’s fastest-growing organized crimes, driven by international trafficking networks that quickly export stolen devices before they can be blocked or recovered. Authorities said the convictions mark a major step in disrupting the criminal supply chain behind phone theft across the UK.
