Mobile phone theft in Ealing fell by about 2.7% over the past year, according to Metropolitan Police figures, as the force said a London-wide crackdown had cut the offence by 10,000 cases across the capital.
The figures show 1,074 phone thefts were recorded in the London Borough of Ealing between 1 April 2025 and 11 February 2026, down from 1,104 over the same period the previous year.
Across London, the Met said mobile phone theft fell from 81,365 offences in 2024 to 71,391 last year, a drop of about 12.3% – a sharper decline than in Ealing.
The force said the reduction followed what it described as its “largest ever crackdown” on phone thieves, with local officers working alongside specialist teams using tactics including drones, Sur-Ron e-bikes and live facial recognition to identify suspects and disrupt the stolen phone market.
It said that over four weeks of intensified activity between 19 January and 16 February 2026, officers made 248 arrests related to phone theft and seized about 770 stolen phones.
The commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said: “We are relentlessly cracking down on phone thieves and dismantling organised criminal networks at every level – from the pickpockets and phone snatchers operating on our streets, to the handlers who profit from their crimes, right through to the international networks exporting stolen phones overseas.”
Rowley added: “But policing alone cannot solve this problem. Manufacturers and tech companies must do more to stop criminals being able to reset, reuse or resell stolen phones.”
The Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, said: “Too many Londoners have been the victim of phone theft.” He said new “state of the art technology” was helping police “bear down and be tough on mobile phone crime”, adding: “But we know there is still more to do.”
