During a December visit to see family in his home state of New York, Zander Cammarata, who now lives in Berlin, purchased a new iPhone because they cost less in the United States. He then went to see one of his favorite bands, Silverstein, a post-hardcore emo group, in Brooklyn.
By the time he flew back to Germany, he was again using his old phone.
That is because he was among dozens of people who reportedly had their phones stolen at the show at the Brooklyn Paramount.
“I must have [taken] my hand off my phone for, honestly, 10 seconds,” said Cammarata, who was near the stage and had recorded a video before putting the phone in his front pocket. “I remember just thinking to myself, ‘Oh, maybe I should have left it in my bag,’ which made me touch my pocket and to make sure it’s there, and sure enough, it’s gone.”
Thieves have in recent years increasingly targeted people at concerts in New York and elsewhere, at least in part because they can sell the phones for as much as $5,000 in China.
That opportunity has come at the expense of music fans, particularly those at metal and electronic dance music shows, where people often bump against each other, which makes stealing a phone much easier.
“Moshing is part of this fun, right? But I think people are maybe a little bit less guarded,” said Cammarata, who works in the music industry and estimates that there were more than 20 people waiting after the show to ask staff if someone had turned in their phones. “When something bad happens to you, you somehow see the crowd in a different way, and you’re thinking, ‘Oh, so one of these people might be working with these people to steal the phones.’”
An iPhone from the United States is particularly valuable in China because of the country’s restrictions on technology and social media, said Robert Siciliano, a cybersecurity expert.
“Our devices are wide open,” Siciliano said. “You can access anything.”
Even if people password-protect their phones – which not everyone does – it’s pretty easy to override that passcode and do a factory reset, which is “what the end user of that device is looking for”, Siciliano said.
The problem is certainly not limited to New York. In 2024, 80,000 phones were stolen in London, the Metropolitan police reported. In October 2025, the Met reported that they had disrupted a criminal network that over the prior 12 months sent 40,000 stolen phones from the UK to China.
“Cities around the world face a surge in mobile phone theft,” the Met said in a statement.
In New York, venue operators and concertgoers have reported a recent uptick in thefts at shows. Pickpocketing has become a regular conversation topic in an NYC raves Reddit group.
“It is well known that phone theft has unfortunately increased across popular events and at popular venues throughout NYC nightlife in the past 2 years,” Jacqui Rabkin of House of Yes, a Brooklyn night club, wrote in an email to the Guardian.
In September, the Brooklyn venue Warsaw had a sign urging customers to secure their phones because of the increase in pickpocketing during “metal shows at several venues in the area”, according to an image shared on social media.
Alex Guerra, a software engineer in Brooklyn, attends at least one concert weekly. In October, he went to Xanadu, a roller rink and concert venue in his borough, to see Speed, an Australian hardcore punk bank. Shortly after they started, Guerra joined a mosh pit, which he said he enjoys because it allows him to release “all this built-up angst” from sitting behind a computer.
“I had my phone when I jumped in, didn’t have it when I got back out,” said Guerra, who lost about three months of photos. “I was pretty bummed.”
About a month later, someone texted who claimed to have bought the phone for their niece and wanted to unlock it. (Needless to say, Guerra did not share any code.)
Guerra continues to mosh but is more careful and asks his partner to hold his phone.
Siciliano encourages concertgoers to remain aware and keep their phones in their front pockets. Also, for security reasons – and his own peace of mind – he discourages people from holding their phones up at shows.
“One of the most [expletive] annoying things about going to a concert these days is that 99% of the people got their [expletive] phones above their head, blocking my view,” Siciliano said. “They want to record the whole [expletive] thing that they are never going to see again.”
Plus: “That is the perfect opportunity for the criminals to see, OK, that is the absolute latest brand-new phone.”
Rabkin, of House of Yes, said security was trying to address the issue.
“I cannot comment in depth about our current strategies for stopping phone theft because we do not want our tactics to be known & therefore evaded,” she said.
In addition to the Silverstein show, there appears to be at least one more Paramount concert, Hot Mulligan, where many people recently had their phones stolen.
A spokesperson for Live Nation Entertainment, the corporation that operates the venue, told the Guardian: “Given [that] this is an active, ongoing investigation, we’ll refer any additional questions to the” New York police department.
“We are taking these reports very seriously and continue to operate in close partnership with the NYPD. We’re also providing additional guidance for fans about how to look after their personal belongings during a show,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
The NYPD declined an interview request.
Cammarata is now back in Berlin, using his old iPhone, and is still a fan of Silverstein.
But such a theft, he said, “removes a bit of trust or faith in the whole experience”.
