The great mobile robbery

Police have admitted that thieves stole 26,000 Samsung A300 mobile handsets last weekend from a warehouse in Hayes, Middlesex.

Siemens has deactivated the phones so that they cannot be used in the UK and is offering a £200,000 reward for their return.

The handsets have a high-street value of £4.2m.

A police spokesman said that there was no sign of forced entry at the warehouse and the removal of the phones would have taken either an articulated lorry, or a fleet of vans.

The news of the heist comes just weeks after the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens launched a crackdown on mobile phone crime, and hours after details of a raid on security vans in which thieves got away with £4.75m from a secure zone in Heathrow airport.

For related news, see
Vodafone and BT Cellnet fight phone theft
http://www.silicon.com/a51164
Mobile phone theft: The operators fight back
http://www.silicon.com/a50307
Mobile phone companies urged to make life harder for thieves
http://www.silicon.com/a50252
The Great Training Robbery: small firms hit back
http://www.silicon.com/a49823

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