More than 500 suspected stolen mobile phones have been seized by the Metropolitan Police during a raid at a convenience store in north-west London.
Four men, aged 22, 25, 34 and 63, were arrested on suspicion of handling stolen goods, possession of drugs and intent to supply following the raid at a shop in Kilburn High Road.
Video footage released by the force shows a group of officers entering the store, running past customers towards a locked door at the rear of the shop.
They then snap a padlock on the door, finding shelves filled with mobile phones stacked on top of each other, as well as some iPhone packaging.
One officer is heard saying: “That's loads of phones in here.”
The raid came as part of a coordinated week of police action in Brent, aimed at tackling theft, robbery and e-bike related crime.
The shop was subject to a warrant after intelligence indicated that the venue was being used to supply Class B drugs.
Three of the arrested suspects have been released on bail, while one has been released under investigation.
Inspector Yu Zhang, from the Met’s local policing team in Brent, said: “We understand mobile phone theft remains a major concern for Londoners and that’s why we have worked hard to drive down offending.
“Seizures such as this show that we are not only targeting individual phone snatchers, but also those who handle and profit from stolen devices.
“Londoners deserve to feel safe and we are committed to relentlessly disrupting the organised criminal networks fuelling this crime”
The Met is conducting a crackdown on mobile phone theft, having seized 770 stolen phones and making 248 arrests during four weeks of action across London earlier this year.
Some 61,331 devices were stolen in 2025, the equivalent of 1,179 a week or 168 a day, according to analysis of the Met's crime dashboard data, and more than 224,000 phones have been reported stolen in London over the past four years.
Last year however marked the first fall in phone thefts since the force launched its dashboard data in February 2022, with mobile phone theft offences in London falling by 10,000 in the past year.
Four individuals suspected of handling stolen mobile phones are scheduled to go on trial later this month.
