Man receives death threats after tracking stolen iPhone

Victim was sent messages from Shenzhen in southern China

- ALEX ROSS

A City worker was warned “You’re going to be destroyed” and sent a video of a man holding a loaded gun after he managed to track down his stolen iPhone to China. Christopher BramahCalvert received the shocking messages after his phone was snatched from his hands by an e-bike rider outside a gym in High Holborn in central London.

The 38-year-old tracked his phone on the Find My app across two locations in London before it suddenly appeared in Shenzhen, in southern China, a month after the theft. The street it was located in, Huafa South Road, is where hundreds of stolen phones from the UK have been turning up, with criminal gangs believed to be sending the devices en masse to the city for resale or parts.

It’s also easier to unlock and sell stolen iPhones in Shenzhen, which has the largest electronics market in the world, police chiefs have told The Independent – but the criminals require the devices to be disconnected from the victims’ Apple accounts.

Mr Bramah-Calvert, whose phone was an iPhone 13, said: “I’d been following it for days and then was surprised to see it suddenly in China, and then I started getting messages to my husband’s phone. At first they were from someone claiming to have bought it and asking I disconnect it – but then it turned threatening, and I was then sent a video of a man holding a gun. At first, I was completely taken aback by it.”