It turns out that there is an interesting building in China called the «house of stolen iPhones».
According to Financial Times (via 9to5mac), many Apple smartphones stolen in places as far apart as New York, Los Angeles, and London are brought there, where they are either dismantled for parts or sold.
Sam Avrani, one of the owners of an iPhone 15 Pro that was snatched from his hands on the street by two thieves on electric bicycles, was able to track his smartphone’s long journey of 10,000 kilometers, eventually leading it to a place that many residents of Shenzhen, China, have long nicknamed «the home of stolen iPhones» — the Feiyang Times building.
Officially, the building is known as a place to repair or upgrade your iPhone, and unofficially — as a market for stolen devices from the United States and Europe. Feiyang Times is often mentioned in forums and on social media by theft victims as the location where they last picked up the device’s signals using the Find My option. Here’s an example of the long journey of Sam Avrani’s iPhone:
- Snatched out of his hands in London while responding to a WhatsApp message;
- He was taken to a mobile phone repair shop a few kilometers from the crime scene;
- They moved it to several London addresses;
- A week later, he appeared in Kowloon, Hong Kong;
- Later in Shenzhen, China and the same building of the Feiyang Times.
Obviously, unlocked iPhones will be more valuable, but there are buyers for locked smartphones who are willing to sell them off piece by piece. However, sometimes victims of theft receive strange messages in iMessage trying to force them to unlock their devices (when you put your iPhone in lost or stolen mode, it may display your phone number or email address so that the person who found the device can contact the owner and return the device).
The report shows a screenshot of a message sent to the owner of a locked iPhone:
«Your old iPhone is being recycled by us, we are just sellers, we are not stealing it. If you don’t unlock it, the motherboard will be sold to other customers and they may jailbreak your phone, steal your credit card, or contact your family. We recommend that you unlock it as soon as possible so that we can restore the factory settings and erase all data».
Obviously, this is just blackmail and bluffing, but people who are not technically savvy may be frightened by these words.
Feiyang is not the only establishment in the area that sells used smartphones, but this particular mall specializes in selling foreign models (compared to Chinese ones, they offer access to global app stores and also have lower prices due to SIM card restrictions on certain networks). Although most sellers hide their origin, — six of the respondents said they did not know how they got American iPhones.
Tongtiandi Communication Market, which runs the Feiyang mall, did not respond to the FT’s request for comment.
Spelling error report
The following text will be sent to our editors: