HUFFINGTON
07.28.13
STATE OF CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
THE BIG STEAL
tives without being traced. But
American wireless companies lack
similar arrangements with other
countries, allowing international
phone trafficking to flourish.
Phones stolen in the United
States have been located “on all
continents except Antarctica,” said
Marci Carris, vice president of customer finance services at Sprint.
The global nature of the trade
stems in part from measures that
law enforcement and wireless
carriers have imposed to make it
harder to resell stolen phones in
the United States, prompting crim-
inals to forge new markets abroad.
“Once it gets overseas, it’s virtually impossible to track a phone
back here to the person who committed the crime,” Deaven said.
But phone trafficking is driven
largely by the massive profits made
by exploiting the price difference
between smartphones sold in the
U.S. and overseas. Americans who
agree to two-year service contracts
with their cell phone company can
buy the latest iPhones for about
$200 — a price subsidized by the
carrier. In Hong Kong, an iPhone
can be sold for as much as $2,000.
This equation helps explain
why more than 1.6 million Americans were victims of smartphone
In March,
authorities
in California
charged two
men from
Sacramento
for their
role in an
operation
that brought
millions of
dollars worth
of stolen
iPhones to
Hong Kong,
where they
sell for as
much as
$2,000 per
phone.