Horrifying world of High St moped bandits
HIDING behind ghoulish masks, members of a ruthless moped gang brag about using acid, swords and baseball bats to rob pedestrians.
The criminals boast to a BBC journalist of stealing thousands of pounds worth of mobile phones, tablet computers and bags and carrying out smash-and-grab raids on high street jewellers.
One of the gang, a 21-year-old known as Mr X who wore a skull mask, crows about being able to snatch three smartphones in 20 seconds, comparing it to ‘stealing candy from a baby’.
Another 21-year-old, nicknamed TopKat, boasts of owning ‘bats, knives and swords’, which he claims he uses on pedestrians or during high-value raids on upmarket jewellery stores in Mayfair, central London.
Asked if he had used acid, he says: ‘A couple of times. Sprayed it in his face... just bleeding like, he’s burning. Man’s shouting and screaming.
‘If I had my knife on me one of us would have ended up dead, you get me?
‘I’m just doing it so they get out the way, so they don’t resist so I can just get my things.’
The sickening world of the thugs – and how they pick their innocent victims – has been exposed in a documentary, Inside Britain’s Moped Crime Gangs.
There were more than 23,000 motorcycle crimes in London last year – an average of 63 a day.
Moped crime shot up 2,100 per cent in the city’s most famous shopping thoroughfare, Oxford Street. Most muggings are committed by gangs on stolen vehicles and officers have seen a 41 per cent spike in moped thefts in the past 12 months. Mr X, a phone snatcher who claims to live in Islington, North London, says he has stolen hundreds of devices over the past seven years.
He says he targets ‘ phone zombies’ – people glued to their smartphones as they walk along the street. As one criminal steers the moped, the pillion passenger snatches the phones.
He told documentary-maker Livvy Haydock how moped gangs select their victims, mocking ‘stupid’ pedestrians at road crossings, bus stops and the pavement because they are unaware of their vulnerability.
Mr X said: ‘ We are looking for people that are looking down, got their phones out with their headphones in, in particular.
‘As soon as it is green, they are unaware to any vehicles coming and for us that is the perfect opportunity because as they’re crossing, we time it and then we’ll grab whatever we can grab and off we go. By the time they realise, we’re already at the second traffic light. Anything that’s not securely wrapped around someone’s shoulder or someone’s back, it’s very easy for us to snatch and take it.’
He says rush hour is the perfect time to strike – heavy traffic helps keep the police at bay.
He added: ‘Traffic is not a problem, red light, not a problem, speed camera, I don’t give a s**t. I am getting away, that’s it.’ Asked if pedestrians were ‘stupid’ to walk around with their phones out, Mr X replied: ‘ Of course, you’re asking for it, in my opinion.’
Explaining how he evades capture, Mr X says: ‘ I’m not on the same bike every day, I’m not in the same clothes, not in the same area every day either. ‘I’m not going to show my face; no face, no case. If I see a camera, it’s looking for licence plates. I don’t have a licence plate and if I do it’s not mine.’
On the documentary, Mr X took four phones to a buyer, who paid between £70 and £250 for each of them. The buyer takes them to Nigeria, where they fetch even more. Last week Met Police Superintendent Mark Payne said: ‘These offenders rely on the unwariness of the public to snatch their phones while they make calls.
‘It is so important that the public is aware of their surroundings at all times and protect their personal property.’
Thieves target those chatting on smartphones so they don’t have to go to the trouble of unlocking the devices after they’ve stolen them.
Inside Britain’s Moped Crime Gangs is available on BBC iPlayer
‘You’re asking for it in my opinion’