Pavement plaques warn Londoners as 61,000 phones snatched in 2025
Police have begun painting “blue plaques” onto London pavements in a striking new attempt to alert pedestrians to the soaring threat of phone snatchers, as fresh figures reveal tens of thousands of devices are being torn from unsuspecting hands across the capital each year.
The warning markings have been rolled out alongside intensified patrols and rapid-response tactics, with City of London Police disclosing that officers tracked down and arrested a suspect just 40 minutes after he allegedly struck in the street.
The 34-year-old was detained in the early hours of April 15 after a victim had a mobile snatched from their hand on Old Broad Street. According to police, the suspect had attempted to strike up a conversation before grabbing the phone and fleeing the scene. Officers were alerted within minutes and used the City’s extensive camera network to follow his movements, eventually catching up with him on nearby Bishopsgate. The stolen phone was recovered and returned to its owner, while a second handset, also believed to be stolen, was found in his possession.
A spokesperson for City of London Police said: “We’re grateful for the early reporting of this crime and description of the suspect which enabled us to mobilise the extensive camera network in the City to locate him and then quickly detain him before any further victims were targeted.”
The force added that phone snatching offences had already fallen by 40 per cent compared with last year, and pledged to “continue to use every tool at our disposal, from proactive patrols to complex financial investigations, to drive that figure down even further”. The public has been urged to activate advanced anti-theft features on their devices, hide banking apps behind biometric locks and shield their PINs in public. Officers are now working to trace the owner of the second phone recovered.
Tackling the crime, the force said, forms a central pillar of its three-year policing plan.
The arrest comes as the broader picture across London remains stark. Analysis of the Metropolitan Police’s crime dashboard data shows that 61,331 devices were stolen in 2025 — the equivalent of 1,179 a week, or 168 every day. While the figure represents a drop from a peak of 70,255 in 2024, the longer-term trajectory is sharply upwards. Almost twice as many phones were snatched in 2025 as in 2022, when the total stood at 36,637. More than 224,000 thefts have been logged in the capital over the past four years, although the true number is likely higher given that not every incident is reported.
Westminster remains the epicentre of the crime, accounting for nearly a third of all thefts last year with 18,932 incidents. It was followed by Camden (5,543), Southwark (5,276) and Hackney (3,977). Newham, Islington, Tower Hamlets, Haringey and Brent completed the top ten worst-affected boroughs. At the other end of the scale, Sutton recorded just 88 thefts, with Richmond-upon-Thames, Bexley, Merton and Havering also among the safest areas.
The pavement plaques are not the first attempt to use street-level signage to deter thieves. Last August, the Daily Mail reported that purple “Mind the Grab” stickers had appeared on Oxford Street, where a phone is reported snatched every 15 minutes. The initiative, launched by retailer Currys and sanctioned by the Labour-controlled Westminster Council, was backed by senior Metropolitan Police figures but drew sharp criticism from members of the public, who argued that visible policing would be a more effective deterrent than warning graphics.
One man, speaking anonymously to the Daily Mail at the time, dismissed the campaign as “a joke”, saying: “The police don’t care. No one gives a f*** if your phone with all of your pictures and emails and basically your whole life gets snatched by some lowlife on a bike they probably stole as well.”
Defending the scheme, Ed Connolly, Chief Commercial Officer at Currys, said: “Phone theft isn’t just about losing a device — it’s frightening, invasive, and cuts people off from their loved ones, their money, and their daily lives. Enough is enough. It’s time to draw the line on phone theft — that’s why we’ve launched the Mind the Grab campaign: a bold pavement marking we believe can make a real difference by encouraging people to step back from the kerb.”
The stickers, which feature a hand clutching a mobile phone alongside the slogan, have been positioned outside Currys and Miniso stores on the busy shopping thoroughfare.
