Data · Updated July 2026 · Refreshed yearly
Phone theft statistics:
what police data actually shows
Most "phone theft statistics" pages recycle numbers nobody can trace. This one doesn't. Every figure below comes from a police force, a government body, or a named industry study, linked at the point where it appears. Journalists and researchers are welcome to cite this page.
phones reported stolen in London in 2024. One every 4.5 minutes. (House of Commons Library)
phones robbed or stolen in Brazil in 2024, down 12.6% from 2023 (FBSP Anuário 2025)
smartphones stolen or lost in Mexico in 2024, a 10.2 billion peso hit (The CIU)
street snatch thefts in England and Wales in a single year, up 153% (Home Office / GOV.UK)
stolen phones reported in Peru in 2023, about 4,676 every day (BioCatch analysis)
Phone theft by country
These counts measure different things: some are police records, some are survey estimates, one includes lost devices. The "what it counts" column keeps the comparison honest.
| Where | Latest count | Year | What it counts | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | 116,656 | 2024 | Thefts of a mobile phone recorded by the Metropolitan Police | Commons Library |
| United Kingdom | ~78,000 | YE Mar 2024 | Street "snatch thefts" of phones and bags, crime survey estimate | Home Office / GOV.UK |
| Brazil | 917,748 | 2024 | Phones robbed or stolen, state police records aggregated nationally | FBSP Anuário |
| Mexico | 2.2 million | 2024 | Smartphones stolen or lost, industry estimate. Only 1 in 10 owners insured | The CIU |
| Colombia | 49,419 | H1 2024 | Theft reports filed with police, about 273 per day, down 30% year on year | El Tiempo / police data |
| Peru | ~1.7 million | 2023 | Stolen phones reported, industry analysis of regulator data | BioCatch |
| United States | No national count | - | The FBI does not break out phone-specific theft. Best data is city-level, below | NY Attorney General |
London, the best-documented theft market in the world
The Metropolitan Police publishes phone-theft counts down to the borough. In 2024 that meant 116,656 stolen phones, roughly 13 every hour. The single borough of Westminster recorded 34,039, more than most European countries. About 71,000 of the stolen devices were iPhones, and the total haul was worth an estimated £50 million.
The trend just turned. Targeted police operations cut phone theft 27% in November and 43% in December 2024, and Met reporting shows the decline holding through early 2025. What thieves do with those 71,000 iPhones is its own story: we traced the pipeline here.
In US cities, phone theft is most of all robbery
The United States has no national phone-theft count, but the New York Attorney General's "Secure Our Smartphones" report measured how much street robbery is phone robbery (2013, the peak of the wave):
The kill-switch effect: theft drops when stealing stops paying
The strongest causal evidence in this dataset. Apple shipped Activation Lock in September 2013, making a locked iPhone nearly worthless to resell. Police on two continents recorded the drop (NY Attorney General, 2015):
iPhone robberies, one year after Activation Lock
iPhone robberies, one year after Activation Lock
iPhone robberies, first six months
Over the same wave, overall smartphone theft fell 40% in London and 16% in New York City. The lesson still applies: a phone with Find My and Activation Lock on is a bad target.
The recovery rate nobody publishes
Here is the honest gap in the data: no police force or industry body currently publishes a reliable stolen-phone recovery rate. The last serious study, the Prey Project theft report, dates to 2020-2021. Any page telling you "only 7% of stolen phones are recovered" is quoting a number with no traceable source.
One figure hints at why recovery fails even when police succeed: in Bogotá, police had more than 28,000 recovered phones sitting unclaimed at stations in 2024 (Infobae). Owners never filed the report or never came back. What actually moves the odds is speed: the first 30 minutes decide most cases, and having your IMEI recorded before the theft decides whether blocking is even possible.
Where and when phones disappear
Granular location data is thin. The most-cited breakdown, a Kensington security survey, found 25% of device thefts happen in cars and transport, 23% in offices, 15% in airports and hotels, 12% in restaurants. It dates to 2016 and mixes laptops with phones, so treat it as directional. Colombian police data adds a timing signal: thefts peak between 6 and 9 p.m.
The pattern behind both: crowds plus distraction. Public transport, bar tables, and concert exits do more work than any statistic. Our hotspot guide covers the specific habits that make you a harder target.
Methodology and reuse
This page includes only figures traceable to a police force, government body, or named industry study, linked inline where each number appears. We excluded the widely copied aggregator statistics ("70 million phones lost per year", "7% recovery rate") because none of them survive a source check. Figures marked with a year reflect that reporting period; we re-audit the page yearly and date every update.
Reuse: journalists, researchers and bloggers may quote any figure on this page with a link to fatgps.com/phone-theft-statistics/ as the citation.
Frequently asked questions
How many phones are stolen worldwide each year?
No reliable global count exists. Aggregator sites quote figures like "70 million phones lost or stolen a year" without a traceable methodology, so this page excludes them. What police and industry bodies actually publish: 917,748 phones robbed or stolen in Brazil in 2024 (FBSP), 2.2 million stolen or lost in Mexico (The CIU), 116,656 stolen in London alone (Met Police). Peru reported about 1.7 million stolen phones in 2023, the highest known per-capita rate.
Which city has the most phone thefts?
London has the best-documented problem: 116,656 phones reported stolen in 2024, one every 4.5 minutes, with the Westminster borough alone recording 34,039. Latin American cities likely see higher per-capita rates, but most publish national rather than city-level counts, so direct comparison is not honest.
What percentage of stolen phones are recovered?
No police force or industry body currently publishes a reliable recovery rate. The last serious attempt, the Prey Project theft report, dates to 2020-2021. One telling data point: in Bogotá, more than 28,000 recovered phones sat unclaimed at police stations in 2024. Recovery depends mostly on how fast the owner acts in the first hour.
Did kill switches reduce phone theft?
Yes, measurably. After Apple shipped Activation Lock in September 2013, iPhone robberies fell 40% in San Francisco and 25% in New York City within a year, and 24% in London within six months, according to the New York Attorney General. Overall smartphone theft fell 40% in London and 16% in NYC over the same wave.