CCTV shows Met officers arresting brazen phone snatcher

CCTV footage released by the Met shows two quick-thinking officers catch a brazen phone thief, demonstrating the Met’s commitment to making London a safer place for tourists and commuters.

The footage captured was taken on Friday, 5 July, when two plain-clothed officers PC Josh Lowther and PC Stephen Rogers had been out on patrols in Soho, London.

In the footage, a man dressed in white can initially be seen running across the road. He then steals a mobile phone from the back pocket of an unaware victim in Soho. On seeing this, the video shows the two heroic officers immediately jump into action and tackle the street thief.

The officers later retrieved the stolen phone before returning it to its unwitting owner.

As a result, Kaidi Nasser, 25 (21.07.1999) was charged with theft before he was remanded in custody. He appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday, 8 July where he pleaded guilty to theft and was given 30 weeks imprisonment.

Detective Superintendent Saj Hussain, who leads on phone robbery and theft in the Met, said: “Robbery and theft are invasive and often violent crimes. I want to therefore applaud the quick-thinking actions of these two officers for returning the victim’s phone, putting a street thief behind bars, and helping to make London safer.

“Met officers are targeting resources to hotspot areas, such as Westminster and Croydon, with increased patrols and plain clothes officers. These deter criminals and make officers more visibly available to members of the community.

“We encourage people to report as soon as they can whenever they have been a victim of robbery or theft, so officers can attend the scene and investigate swiftly.”

The arrest is part of a wider set of successes. Across London, 293 arrests were made for personal robbery in the 4-week period to 30 June 2024. In central London which is a hotspot, there has been a 23.8% drop across cases of robbery since April 1 2024.

Met officers are using intelligence to identify the most prolific robbery offenders and target resources to their local areas. For example, suspects who are imprisoned for three months or more for robbery are put on a tag on their release. If they are within 100 metres of a reported robbery that has taken place in London, officers are able to use data from their tag to build evidence against those committing offences.

The Met is using technology and data to build intelligence and track stolen phones and using this data to develop our intelligence about common locations for where stolen phones are kept, allowing us to recover over 750 stolen phones since 1 January 2024.

Work between the police and the phone industry is underway to “design out” the ability for phones to be stolen. For example, the Met has asked operating system providers to explore whether lost or stolen devices can be prevented from being re-registered with ‘cloud’ services by a second person.

How can people protect themselves?

• Set a strong screen lock password or PIN which makes it harder for criminals to ‘shoulder surf’.
• Secure high value applications and accounts on devices, including digital wallets and banking applications with strong, separate passwords.
• Don’t save secure pins, passwords or photographs of official documents which could be used to take out loans on your phone.
• Consider turning on “stolen device protection” if you are the owner of an Apple iPhone. This enforces face ID to access passwords.
• If your phone is stolen contact police, your bank and your mobile provider as soon as possible.