14 DAY TRIAL // Police raided several locations in London and arrested nine people suspected of being members of a criminal ring, which stole millions of pounds from telecommunications companies.
It looks like the ring was part of an international fraud network built around fraudulently acquired iPhones, inside which multiple gangs handled different aspects of the operation.
Police investigators claim that a group of West African fraudsters used cloned credit cards and stolen identities to buy iPhones and associated service subscriptions over the Internet.
However, instead of being shipped at the addresses specified during purchase, the devices were delivered by corrupt drivers to an individual, who received almost 1,000 fraudulently bought iPhones in this manner.
The fraudster was taking the SIM cards out from the devices and was selling them to a gang, made up primarily of Pakistani nationals.
This gang was shipping the cards to countries in Middle East, Europe and Asia, where they were being placed inside special auto-dial devices configured to call local premium rate phone lines non-stop.
Through this method, the fraudsters managed to steal £1.2 million (over $1.8 million) in July from UK telecom provider O2.
The company was paying money instantly to the premium rate numbers operators, but was not being able to recover the funds from customers, who were supposed to own those SIM cards.
"Today we have struck at the very heart of a highly sophisticated criminal network that has been targeting the telecommunications industry to steal millions of pounds.
"Our investigation found a crime gathering momentum. Each month more Sim cards were being used to make more phone calls to premium rate lines at more expense to the network provider," Detective Superintendent Bob Wishart, of City of London Police, commented for The Daily Telegraph.
The SIM-less iPhones were also being sold by a different gang in countries where operators don't block them, for as much as £450 ($700) a piece.
During the raids Police found and seized hundreds of SIM cards, tens of new iPhones still in their boxes, cloned credit cards, as well as fake passports.