The signing of the new code of practice by over 90% of the mobile phone recycling industry means that for the first time there are agreed guidelines for the checking of handsets offered for sale to the industry and this includes using the CheckMEND service to check the National Mobile Phone/Property Register.

Adrian Portlock CEO of Recipero the operator of CheckMEND said:

This is a major step forward for the industry and CheckMEND and we are really pleased the industry has recognised their responsibilities in checking products they are buying, this model needs to be extended to all handlers of used goods and retailers taking trade ins and we will be pushing for this to be the case, but this is an excellent start.

For more information please see the following sites:

• CheckMEND – www.checkmend.com
• Phone Recycling Code of Practice site – www.stoprecycledstolenphones.com
• Home Office Press Release – www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/press-releases/code-practice-stolen-mobiles
• The Police NMPR (National Mobile Phone/Property Register) – www.thenmpr.com
• Immobilise National Property Register – www.immobilise.com
• Recipero – www.recipero.com

The campaign aims to raise awareness among young people about protecting themselves and their property and prevent them from becoming victims of theft. The message is – don’t make your phone a moving target – stay aware when using it in public places.

Posters will go up in secondary schools, youth clubs and at transport hubs across the borough. Police and council officers will be handing out leaflets to young people at bus and train stations and other busy areas.

A key element of the campaign is to get people to register their phone at www.immobilise.com . Doing this can help the police to recover property if is it is stolen and to catch the thieves.

We would advise anyone who has a mobile phone, whatever their age, to register it on www.immobilise.com as soon as possible. If it is stolen, it increases your chances of getting it back. It also helps the police to catch those responsible and bring them to justice – taking robbers off the streets.

When you register your phone on the website, please tell them you heard about www.immobilise.com from the Safer Croydon Partnership.

To read the source article please go to: Metropolitan Police

On the 14th May, a man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for handling stolen goods. Alexander Smith, aged 40, was sentenced at Bristol Crown Court after a two year investigation conducted by Avon and Somerset Police’s burglary team and crime reduction unit in Bristol.

Officers were able to prove that Smith had been knowingly buying stolen mobile phones by utilising an online system known as CheckMEND. This system allows members of the public to check if a mobile phone is stolen before buying it.

Police searched a shop in East Street, Bedminster and identified more than 20 phones that were stolen from victims in both burglaries and robberies, many of which had occurred in the South Bristol area. A stolen pedal cycle was also found at Smith’s home address.

During one of these incidents, a female victim positively identified her stolen phone in Smith’s shop. Smith then demanded £40 from the victim before he would return her phone.
PC Frank Simonds, from Bristol Crime Reduction Unit, said:

The use of CheckMEND technology now allows the police to prove if stolen phones are being bought and sold by second hand retailers.

We will be relentless in our pursuit of those dealing in stolen goods.

Many phones that were proven to be stolen had been registered by owners on the Immobilise database. Registering phones enables the police to return them to their rightful owners.
Members of the public can register their phone for free by visiting www.immobilise.com

Members of the public can check if a mobile phone is stolen by visiting www.checkmend.com.

Retailers can receive advice on protecting their business from handling stolen goods as part of Operation Recover run by Avon and Somerset Police.

To read the source release in full please go to: Avon & Somerset Police

This means that if your phone is lost or stolen it will be easily identifiable and can be returned to its rightful owner.

Derek Johnston said that the day had proven well worthwhile:

We were getting roughly 20 people an hour visiting the pod to register their mobile phones. In fact, the event went so well that we have decided to organise an other Immobilise event in the Melling area in a few weeks time.

Merseyside Police are urging people to make their mobile phones less attractive to would-be thieves by immobilising them.

Merseyside Police has adopted the Immobilise system – a property-registering scheme that aims to make life as difficult as possible for thieves. The aim of the scheme is to encourage members of the public to register their mobiles on the National Mobile Database.

As part of a crime prevention initiative, PCSOs from Maghull are encouraging people to bring along their mobile telephones to Maghull Police Station for registering.

To read the source story in full please go to: Merseyside Police

Although the adoption of the designs by the industry is by no means guaranteed, very few people disagree that more needs to be done to address crime relating to mobile phones and portable devices. Although overall crime has dropped since 1997, according to research performed by the University of Leicester, the type of crimes being committed has changed. Their findings suggest that a decade ago burglary was attractive to criminals as they would find households containing DVD players, videos etc that were easy to sell on. These days DVD players cost as little as £20 so have hardly any resale value.

As the phones and media devices we carry around with us have become more powerful, their values have increased and along with it their attractiveness to criminals.

Commenting on the research findings criminology lecturer James Treadwell said:

While we might have seen a decline in some types of crime, we have seen a rise in other forms of criminal activity, particularly young people who seem to be mugging one another

DVD players for example, got cheaper, certain consumer items became smaller and were very, very expensive and sought after, and so the latest mobile phone, or the latest iPod, which people carry about them, have become targets for robbers.

Mobile phone crime will never be an easy issue to address especially as devices become enabled for mobile payments, but new designs and initiatives like the Immobilise National Property Register / NMPR will continue to combat crime.

Links:

Immobilise National Property Register
Home Office: New technologies unveiled to help protect Britain’s 75m mobile phone users from crime
BBC News: Crime targets affected by drop in goods prices

CheckMEND the world’s largest due diligence service which is owned by Recipero is delighted to announce the recent acquisitions of two US centric businesses, the Trace due diligence system and PhoneHistoryReport the stolen phone checking service. The data from both businesses will be incorporated into the CheckMEND service over the next few weeks.

Both services will complement the existing CheckMEND service providing millions of new records to the CheckMEND website. Of particular note is that the acquisition of Trace will allow CheckMEND to access stolen property data from over 18,000 US law enforcement agencies vastly expanding their reach in the US market. Adrian Portlock CEO of Recipero commented:

These two acquisitions are strategically very important to us as we look to replicate the huge success of CheckMEND in the UK and Europe in the USA. We are already talking to a range of organisations who wish to use the new enhanced CheckMEND service in the US and we are very excited about the potential opportunities this provides to the US consumer buying and selling on sites such as EBay and Craig’s List.

Officers have recorded a rise in the number of thefts at indoor and outdoor music venues across the country.

They believe pickpockets are targeting top-end mobile phones used by many to take pictures and record acts on stage.

Investigators said surging crowds and booming music can make individuals more vulnerable to theft and help criminals escape. Members of the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit (NMPCU), based within the Metropolitan Police, have warned music venues of the trend.

Detective Superintendent Nev Nolan, who leads the unit, said:

We want all fans to enjoy their concert and to have a good experience.

We are concerned that organised thieves are targeting concerts to steal phones from genuine fans.

A lot of people like to use their mobile phones to film or take photographs of the concert, but will then return the phone to an insecure bag or pocket, where thieves are able to snatch it.

When they discover it is gone, many will simply assume it is lost and simply cancel the sim, without reporting it to the police.

A lot of people will be getting mobile phones for Christmas and we would urge them to keep them safe and to register their phones with the website Immobilise.com.

Source: The Press Association

While on patrol on October 27, in Seven Sisters Road, Tottenham, Haringey police’s safer transport team stopped-and-searched a 31-year-old man.

He was found to be carrying a mobile phone which was traced by the police* on website Immobilise.com to a woman who had reported it as stolen in September.

The man was arrested on suspicion of handling stolen goods and bailed to return to police on Monday, November 9.

PC Matt Fathers, of Haringey Safer Transport team, said:

This shows that by having your valuables registered on immobilise.com, the chances of having you lost or stolen property returned to you, are greater.

The stolen mobile has since been restored to the owner who was very pleased.

The free website allows users to register all of their valuables by serial number inlcuding mobile phones, laptops and even bikes.

If the property is stolen you can use the site to alert police, insurers or second-hand traders so that if they come across the goods they can be returned and help catch criminals.

To read the source report in full please go to: Haringley Independent

* The police search the Immobilise National Property Register and other information via their own search portal the NMPR.

The handheld device scans the IMEI barcode inside the back of a mobile phone and checks it against the national property register to see if it is registered as stolen.

It can also be used to check mobile phones, laptops, MP3 players and bikes, and for phones where the barcode is not easily accessable officers can simply key in the IMEI number (accessable on all phones by keying *#06#) directly into the device.

Borough commander Chief Superintendent Charles Griggs said:

The operation is one of many throughout the year where we focus on the safety of the travelling public and tackling crime and disorder on public transport.

What is different is the use of Apollo. As a portable handheld solution Apollo offers my officers remote access to the national mobile phone register whether out in the field or in the custody suite and gives us the opportunity to quickly identify stolen property.

Bromley police is encouraging everyone to register with the secure national property register at immobilise.com.

This will help the police to identify items and return them to their owners if they get lost or stolen.

Anyone with information about robbery in Bromley should call the police on 01689 891212 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

To read the source article in full please go to: The News Shopper

With the gates to Glastonbury Festival opening in just a matter of days around 177,000 people will be travelling to Pilton, many of them with mobile phones, digital cameras, iPods and cash in their pockets.

And while the majority of these people will have little more to worry about than what band to watch previous year’s experience suggests that a small number may become victims of crime.

While crime remains low at Glastonbury Festival, there was a rise in thefts from tents last year – particularly in the first two days of the event – and mobile phones proved to be a particular target.

As a result police are this year urging Glastonbury-goers to register their mobile phones and other essential valuables on the Immobilise Database, before heading to the event, so if they are lost or stolen they can more easily be returned to their owners.

The best advice for not getting your stuff stolen while you are at the festival is not to take it with you – but if you do have to take it – make sure its stored securely and wherever possible make use of the festival’s free property lock-ups available throughout the site.

Police will be at the festival, both in uniform and undercover, on horseback, cycles, and on foot to deter any potential criminals but there are also lots of simple things which you can do to keep yourself as safe as possible and reduce the chances of becoming a victim of crime.

Sergeant Kerry Williams said:

Crime at Glastonbury Festival is low and the crimes that do happen can be easily prevented. We’re urging people to plan carefully ahead of this year’s festival and leave any unnecessary valuables at home. However if they do need to take the items with them make sure they are registered on the Immobilise Database and are stored securely by making use of the free property lock-ups.

I would also urge people not to leave anything valuable unattended in their tents and I’d recommend marking their property, which can both deter thieves and help to show who the rightful owner is.

To read the source article in full please go to: Avon and Somerset Police

Laura Jones of the Formby Times noted that since May 1 the operation has led to 44 arrests, 11 of those for robbery resulting in five people charged and six bailed.

Police officers have made 462 stop searches and 91 stop checks, while also checking up on 568 “vulnerable premises”.

During the operation 74 mobile phones have been checked against the Immobilise National Property Register which can help reunite victims of robbery with their phones.

The operation has already seen a decrease in crime in the targeted areas.

Along with more patrols and increased intelligence gathering the Police have been working with Secondary School pupils.

Chief Inspector Stuart Ellison said:

With the summer holidays coming arriving soon I want to give out a very strong but clear message, that the Police are cracking down on crime and disorder throughout Sefton and if you or have the intention of committing crime you be caught, arrested and prosecuted.

To read the source article in full please go to: Formby Times Online

The Northamptionshire Evening Telegraph

However Crime prevention officer Paul Golley said people weren’t doing enough to protect themselves from thieves and against robbery:

We’d urge people not to show off their mobile phones or leave them unattended in public places like pubs and restaurants. People are advised not to use them while walking in public places as you are more prone to robbery.

We’d remind motorists not to leave phones in their cars and people should switch their phones to vibrate if they think their phone might bring them unwanted attention.

The number of mobile phone thefts in north Northamptonshire stood at 1,482 for the period 2006 to 2007. In the following year they dropped to 1,446 and the latest annual figure was 1,291.

To read the source article in full please go to: The Northamptionshire Evening Telegraph

The scheme will see the Police National Computer (PNC) linked to the National Mobile Phone Register (NMPR) enabling frontline officers to quickly and easily check if a phone has been registered as stolen from its rightful owner.

Home Office Minister, Alan Campbell said:
By working closely with the mobile phone industry we have already put in place measures to make it harder for thieves to profit from mobile phone theft – around 90% of handsets reported stolen are now blocked within 24 hours of reporting reducing their value and the incentive for thieves.

Linking the National Mobile Phone Register to the Police National Computer will also provide enormous benefits to the fight against mobile phone crime. Currently an average of 25% of searches result in the police obtaining vital information that could result in property being retrieved and cases being solved. I believe that putting this invaluable tool at frontline officer’s fingertips will see that number rise further.

The NMPR (National Mobile Property Register) is the national police database of registered property ownership and stolen property records. It is linked to voluntary databases – such as Immobilise.com, where people can enter their phone’s details. So if the phone is lost or stolen police can identify it and return it to the rightful owner.

To read the offical Home Office press release go to:  Home Office Press Release

To visit the National Mobile Phone Register (NMPR) go to: NMPR

To visit the NMPCU (National Mobile Phone Crime Unit) go to: NMPCU

In conjunction with the Safer Middlesbrough Partnership and Radio Tactics, police in Middlesbrough have bought two mobile phone scanners.

The handheld devices can pass over the barcode in the back of a registered handset and identify it there and then as lost or stolen.

Police urge mobile phone owners to register their handset on http://www.immobilise.com/which can store unique details of mobile phones, such as their IMEI and serial numbers.

The new scanners, which will link in with Immobilise, were piloted in Middlesbrough last summer with encouraging results. Thirty-seven mobiles were scanned and found to be stolen.

The property office and Middlesbrough CID will each have a scanner so that any mobiles recovered in hauls of suspected stolen goods or booked into found property can be checked – and immediately blocked if necessary while police trace the original owner.

Detective Chief Inspector Shane Sellers, Middlesbrough police crime manager, said:

The new scanners should help progress the positive work we have carried out so far. Officers have already visited and will continue to visit local stores and dealers to encourage them to promote the registration scheme at the point of sale.

Det Chief Insp Sellers said that together with the Safer Middlesbrough Partnership the police intended visiting schools to promote the initiative to younger phone owners who are often affected by theft.

He added:

Once again, I’d urge mobile phone owners to take just a few minutes to register their phones on the immobilise website – it’s easy, quick and free.

To read the source article in full please go to: Middlesbrough Evening Gazette

If these belongings are subsequently stolen and recovered by police, the database allows police to track down their owners.

PCSO Louisa Warburton said:

The response from the children was great and we’re hoping that they will also take home the leaflets we gave them so that their parents can learn about the Immobilise website too.

It would be great if families could register all their expensive gear on the database because it is such a useful tool for us in helping to recover property that has been lost or stolen.

To read the source article in full please go to: The York Press

Gwent Police said it had noticed a rise in thefts from cars in the run-up to Christmas and was concerned people may be led into making dodgy purchases.

The force is urging people to register valuables on a website so items stolen could be returned to them more easily.

It is also targeting car criminals with more patrols, “capture cars” and number plate recognition camera equipment.

Community Safety Inspector Terry Davies said:

We are concerned that the credit crunch may be leading more people to risk buying dodgy goods which could have been stolen, to save money.

Our guess is that with the type of stuff being stolen, there may be more people inclined to buy cheaper goods and perhaps ask less questions than before.

We know that lot of sat nav sytems are being stolen. They are becoming almost a necessary item to own.

What we feel is that because so many items of this type of property is being stolen, there must be more than usual market for them.

He added stolen goods were much easier to return to their owners if they had been registered on www.immobilise.com, a property register used by all the UK’s police forces.

To read the source article in full please go to the BBC News website

Middlesbrough Police, in conjunction with the Safer Middlesbrough Partnership and Safe in Tees Valley, are putting out a pre-Christmas message to encourage all owners of new mobile phones are registered with the website www.immobilise.com, which can store unique details of personal mobile phones, such as serial numbers.

Detective Chief Inspector Shane Sellers, of Middlesbrough Police, said:

Last year 835 mobile phones were reported stolen in the district.

Registering mobile phones on the www.immobilise.com website should have an impact in reducing this figure, particularly where phones have been stolen, as the phone can very quickly be blocked on the UK network, rendering it useless to the thief.

Safe in Tees Valley will be taking the message into schools and colleges to promote the message to the customers who are often most affected by mobile thefts.

To read the source story in full go to: Gazette Live

Officers are launching a crime awareness initiative today (Wednesday 3 December) to put crime prevention awareness at the front of people’s minds as they prepare for the busy holiday season.

Robbery, shoplifting, vehicle crime, fraud and petty thefts traditionally rise at this time of year and people can easily fall prey to thieves as they may not be as security conscious as usual.

December’s dark nights give burglars plenty of cover to break into houses. Householders are reminded not to leave valuables and presents where they can be seen by passers by looking into the house.

The top five valuables burglars look for are:

1. cash
2. jewellery
3. computers, including laptops and play stations
4. credit and debit cards
5. mobile phones

It is not just consumers that need to be more wary at this time of year, trades people are also urged to be wary and to proactively register items on immobilise.com:

Trades people are reminded to remove tools from their vans overnight, to postcode their equipment and register any tools with serial numbers at www.immobilise.com

The top five things stolen from vehicles are:

1. auto accessories including hub caps, number plates and car badges
2. audio items such as CDs
3. car radios and CD players
4. tools
5. other on display items such as satellite navigation systems.

To read more please visit the West Midlands Police press site.

Lost my phone!

In 2000 I lost my phone on the London Underground and went to the lost property office to try to find it. However, I was then faced with the task of providing a serial number or what we also know as the IMEI number. But in 2000  no one had really heard of what an IMEI number was let alone know their own!

Anyway after eventually finding my IMEI number and recovering my phone, I realised that all modern consumer electronic products have a unique serial number and that without them there was little way of distinguishing one item from another. Thus, I formed the idea that there was a need in the market for a pre-loss or theft registration service containing these serial numbers.

Previous career path

My career has always involved providing services to the consumer, back in 2000, at the age of 40; I sold my chain of restaurants, bars and leisure facilities, with the aim of taking early retirement and relaxing after a very full working life… until the idea for CheckMEND hit me.

I decided to start up a company called Recipero (latin meaning to retain or recover), with a view to building a company that provided a range of products and services based on the accumulation, organisation and analysis of information relating to personal property ownership, associated criminality, fraud and illegal trading.

The simple pre-loss registration database:

The starting point was with a simple pre-loss registration database, but it quickly became apparent that there was value in the analysis of the data and potential to provide HPI-type data for consumer electronics.  This was reinforced at the time with the explosion of online auction sites and the willingness of people to buy and sell second-hand goods online. All at the same time as the huge increase in the theft of mobile phones and other mobile devices such as laptops, ipods and the like.
The next three years was spent populating the MEND data warehouse and building partnerships across the mobile industry, with the likes of Carphone Warehouse and mobile phone networks. The police forces were also a vital partner for me.
Eventually, the system grew and now contains billions of pieces of discrete information and is accessed over a million times a month by the mobile phone industry, all UK Police forces, major insurers, the second hand trade, recyclers and the public.
CheckMEND.com was launched in 2006 and the CheckMEND database is now used extensively by second hand trade and the public the most common use of CheckMEND by the general public is for when they are buying or selling items from online auction sites like ebay.

Taking it international:

I can now safely say the company is well established and we are starting to focus on business outside the UK. 2008 will see two new launches for CheckMEND.com. One in the US, which the Recipero and CheckMEND teams are extremely excited about, with the U.S. being the largest market for consumer electronics. Not only that, we have already begun the process of launching in Asia too.

Obviously the road to where we are today didn’t all run as smoothly as suggested above, many a challenge was faced and problem overcome, but this is the CheckMEND story… so far…

Have a look at the youtube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zcm9VFNvuQ

However, if these auction sites ignore the statistics, and continue to allow themselves to be marketplaces for selling ‘stolen goods’ will mean that they will soon become high profile case studies for us.  Beware – You will get caught

There has been much discussion within the mobile tech community on whether CheckMEND is a good deal which our very own bat phone cleared up:

Hi, just to let you know CheckMEND ‘trade’ account is such only because that’s who they think would be interested in it. In fact the vat number and co number are optional at registration and they only thing ‘trade’ about it is a minimum £25 worth of checks purchased at registration. At the moment though you get 50 checks for this so paying only £0.50 instead of £2.99 for your first fifty checks and only £1 per check after that.

Of course reselling checks is against the terms and all your certificates will have the account holders details on so giving them away becomes awkward too but if you may check several phones in future (the credits never expire) it’s a good deal.

Declaration: I work for the parent company but this isn’t an advert, I just want to put right the misunderstanding about trade accounts. I’ll pass on the confusion and perhaps the web guys will modify the website.

We have some hard hitting facts for you, collated from our CheckMEND database.

Mobile Phone stats from CheckMEND

• Of the £5bn Stolen goods for sale online, it is estimated that £2.6bn of that can be attributed to mobile phones
• Of all the checks carried out on CheckMEND over the last 18 months 67% were made on mobile phones. Which equates to 6,700,000 checks made through CheckMEND, were to check the IMEI number of a mobile phone
• Out of every town in the UK you are most likely to be sold a stolen mobile phone in Leicester

CheckMEND has identified 3,522 stolen handsets in the last 23 days, that’s 153 a day and from these checks, it indicates the place you are most likely to be offered a stolen phone in order of likelihood are:

Leicestershire

Greater London – Finsbury Park, North London -600 policemen arrested 70 people!

Birmingham

Manchester

Cambridge

The Nokia N95 is the most checked phone as it is the top end of the price range for second hand phones, so watch out n95 users…

Please remember to protect your mobile phone and register your belongings free with immobilise www.immobilise.com.

After registering your property stolen your information will be fed to our CheckMEND database and we can stop all e-fencing criminals from re-selling your property.