London's thieves are burying phones in flowerbeds
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Richard Whittington
10 min read
The article opens with a reference to the legendary Dick Whittington and his expectation of London's streets paved with gold. Most readers know the name but few know the real historical figure behind the legend - a wealthy merchant who was Lord Mayor of London four times in the 14th-15th centuries, and how his story became mythologized.
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Mobile phone tracking
11 min read
The article describes how thieves wrap phones in tinfoil to block GPS trackers and discusses Find My iPhone technology. Understanding how mobile phone tracking actually works - including GPS, cell tower triangulation, and Wi-Fi positioning - would give readers deeper insight into both the technology victims use to find their phones and the countermeasures thieves employ.
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The Blitz
14 min read
Phoenix Garden is described as being built on a 'former bomb site' - a reference to World War II bombing of London. The Blitz shaped modern London's geography in ways most visitors don't realize, with community gardens, car parks, and open spaces often occupying sites where buildings once stood before German bombing raids.
When Dick Whittington first came to London, the saying goes that he expected to find the streets paved with gold. Nowadays he’d find the flowerbeds filled with stolen mobile phones.
When a reader first mentioned they’d heard about thieves burying devices in the earth of central London, I knew we had to investigate.
I thought we might uncover a new tactic used by the city’s mobile phone thieves. What I didn’t expect was that we would also be able to reunite one of the buried devices with its owner — resulting in an unexpected twist.
Scroll down to read that story — and go to the very end to read about a competition for paying subscribers.
Quick updates:
Our weekend read on the City of London’s treatment of its public spaces elicited a strong response from the best comments section on the internet. Many of readers were strongly supportive of the cafes who are facing eviction. In the name of balance, we have to report the email from a reader who said they’d like a Benugo to replace the independent operators and blamed “sentimental rich fools” for scaring away the chain.
London’s snails farms are suddenly everywhere after our story earlier this month. The BBC did a whole day of coverage about the sites we highlighted, featuring London Centric in its radio and TV broadcasts. We hope to have more tax-avoiding gastropod news for you soon.
For the last few weeks we’ve been looking into the new “selective licensing” regimes for private landlords in several London boroughs, after hearing various horror stories. What we didn’t expect is for chancellor Rachel Reeves to provide the perfect example of a London landlord who doesn’t understand the rules. If you’ve also encountered issues with the new requirements, do get in touch with your story.
We go digging for stolen mobile phones
By Riya Sharma and Polly Smythe
At 8.45pm on 3rd October, a phone thief bumped up against a woman walking down Shaftesbury Avenue. It was a rainy Friday evening and the streets were busy with tourists and Londoners buzzing about Soho. Discreetly swiping the phone inside the victim’s jacket pocket, the thief made off with both her device and the thousands of irreplaceable photos and messages it held. It’s an experience familiar to many
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