Where do the stolen iPhones end? The building in China where smartphones are resold and disassembled

Where the iPhone stolen? For many victims of theft, the regret of having lost a fundamental object for everyday life, which often contains many memories (and personal data) and which in any case has a not indifferent cost. At that point it seems almost useless to ask what a journey do the smartphones subtracted from the legitimate owners.
But behind the theft of the single iPhone it seems to be a more complex systema thread that connects the cities of Europe and the United States with a megalopolis in China, passing through a special administrative region. From an investigation by Financial Timesin fact, it emerged that in the city of Shanzhen there is a center where i phones are bought, disassembled, resold and from which every now and then they also leave blackmail attempts against the same victims of the theft.

The « journey » of the stolen iPhones

The methods are the classic ones. You are distractedyou’re walking on the street. Maybe you’re even writing a message. And while the fingers move fast on the screen, someone subtracts you with a fast gesture. While you paid attention, a person had joined with an electric bike. And after having removed the precious booty, with a few pedaling it is already unattainable.
The story of many. Also by Sam Amrani and his iPhone 15 Pro. This time in addition to the damage (the theft) there is a mockery (for thieves): the man is in fact the CEO of a company, Pass_by, which deals with Geospace analysis. And so he started following the digital traces left by his phone and the path.
First in a repair shop not far from where it had been stolen, then in different places of London. And, after a week, here he reappears to Hong Kongwhose free trade port status guarantees an import and export regime without taxes. From there, the transition to the city of Shenzhen It’s a moment.

Feiyang Times

Not any place in Shenzhen, but a specific place: the Feiyang Timesa building located in a specialized district in second -hand phones. Often sold by the legitimate owners when you change smartphones. But the fourth floor of the « shopping center », unlike the others, it seems to be specialized in iPhones stolen in the USA and in Europe. The third and fourth floor of the building are the ones that come alive most after sunset, when the buyers have a day to do business.

It is not the only building in Shenzhen where second -hand phones (more or less legitimately obtained) are sold. But the peculiarity of Feiyang is that here those who arrived from the West, who have Two advantages For Chinese buyers: the possibility of accessing the App Stores that are not available in China and use American phones limited to the use of SIM cards of specific networks. All at an affordable price, precisely by virtue of the way they were « acquired ».

Resell the phone or individual parts

On the one hand a box with the written « with ID », on the other hand the one marked as « No id ». The difference? The latter are the phones that have not been blocked and which for this reason can be « cleaned up » easily, that is, reported to factory settings, and resold almost as new.
The problem for retailers is above all the other type of phones. Thanks to functionality « Find my » (in Italian it is called « Where ») It is possible not only to trace lost phones, but also mark them as such, thus making it impossible to any criminals enter the system. In the latter case, the price of the iPhones dismisses dramatically, also losing 70 percent of the value compared to those unlocked.

The « retailers » have one last chance: that of blackmailing the original owners of the phone, claiming to be only retailers (and therefore of having nothing to do with theft) and pushing them to unlock the device. «If you don’t remove the blockade, the motherboard of your old phone will be sold to other customers and Maybe they will be able to hack him or steal your credit card data or contact your family », reads one of these threats sent via iMessage by the criminals, published by Financial Times. « We recommend that you remove the block as soon as possible so we can bring the device back to the factory settings and delete all data. »
In short, a unlocked phone is always worthwhile to retailers. But in the event that the victim of the theft does not give in to blackmail, then the device remains one last possibility of profit: that of disassembling the iPhone piece by piece and of resell its individual partsfrom screens to cards with the circuits, to copper. Even those that seem insignificant to us, such as excess plastic pieces, which can thus be dissolved and resold.