HUFFINGTON
07.28.13
STATE OF CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
THE BIG STEAL
armed robberies” and conducts “a
rigorous screening process” to ensure it doesn’t buy stolen phones.
Kevin Lowe, co-founder of
Wireless Buybacks, has said that
his company supplies phones to
“some of the largest retailers in
the country.” The company generates most of its revenue from a
contract to supply cell phones to
Best Buy worth about $45 million
each year, the company said in
court documents.
Best Buy has no plans to cut
ties with Wireless Buybacks. “At
this point, these are accusations
that haven’t been substantiated,”
a company spokesman said.
But Baldinger, Sprint’s attorney,
said the lawsuit reveals how many
U.S. consumers are unwittingly
buying stolen phones.
“There are lots of consumers
walking around with phones they
think they got legitimately from a
national retailer,” he said, “when
in fact the phones were stolen
during armed robberies.”
NEVER ENOUGH
The middlemen at the center of
the global trade in stolen smartphones organize themselves into
distinct roles.
Many hire hackers who use
special software to “unlock” the
devices, enabling them to connect
with wireless networks around
the world, according to Lt. Ed
Santos of the San Francisco Police
Department, which has created a
special task force focused on combating smartphone thefts. Then,
they erase the data on the handsets, often within an hour after
the device is stolen.
“They completely erase them
so the phones can’t be identified
by who they belong to,” Santos
told HuffPost. “They want to sell a
clean phone that can’t be traced.”
Traffickers later repackage
phones in boxes with the manufacturer’s logo, power chargers and
instruction manuals in the native
language of their destinations, according to Sprint.
Finally, they ship them overseas,
mostly to Hong Kong, where they
Authorities
in California
confiscated
hundreds
of stolen
iPhones
before they
were illegally
shipped for
re-sale in
Hong Kong.