The Metropolitan Police has smashed the gang behind half of Britain's snatched phones in a major sting operation.
Some 28 homes across London were raided in the middle of the night by around 300 officers in a bid to arrest groups of thieves responsible for pinching phones across the capital.
The series of raids has been branded the "biggest counter-phone theft operation in the world" by Scotland Yard's Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.
Just two days before, a pair of Afghan gang leaders were arrested in north London.
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It is thought the two men, codenamed Heron and Seagull, were responsible for sending 40,000 stolen devices to China and Hong Kong.
Police chiefs said they were in possession of devices wrapped in foil to block their tracking services, and were driving a people-carrier which had been converted into a mobile "chop shop" where they could disable the stolen phones.
It is believed they headed the gang responsible for the UK's £70million-a-year phone theft epidemic.
The bust, codenamed Echosteep, was made possible thanks to a chance discovery which took place at Heathrow Airport on Christmas Eve.
The raids took place simultaneously so that no one across the capital could a
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The UK's phone theft epidemic is thought to cost £70million every year
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According to Detective Inspector Mark Gavin, leader of Echosteep, a woman who had had her mobile phone stolen was able to track it to a nearby warehouse where she spoke to a security guard who happened to be a former Met officer.
He added: "Together, they found her phone in a box with 894 other stolen devices."
This discovery enabled the force to identify suspects and piece together key intelligence about a global supply chain for the first time ever.
Three levels of criminals involved in the operation were discovered.
BRITAIN'S PHONE THEFT EPIDEMIC - READ MORE:
Devices found in the raid were wrapped in foil to stop their internal tracking system
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Thieves on the street can make between £300 and £500 for each device taken from a member of the public.
DI Gavin said: "Sometimes we see these almost Fagin-like characters who bring in a load of phones at a time from various street-level thieves."
Then, at the next level, are individuals who run the shops where the stolen phones are collected.
And heading up the illegal operation are high-profile criminals who export phones en masse overseas.
The gang had sent 40,000 phones to China
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It is thought just under a third of the stolen phones are sent to Algeria, 20 per cent to mainland China and seven per cent to Hong Kong.
This is where police believed Seagull and Heron were operating.
DI Gavin continued: "One thing with these gangs that is very unusual is that different groups of various nationalities all work together and cooperate like normal businesses because there is so much money to be made.
"There is less of the tribal rivalry you get with drugs gangs. Indeed, we are seeing many drug gangs move into this space because the profits are so good and there is much less risk.
"We are shifting some of our county lines and firearms resources onto tackling phone theft."
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