UK Police performed “street robbery” to avail themselves of suspected criminals’ iPhones, snatching them after they unlock them to prevent contents from being irretrievable by forensics teams.
Police Steal Criminal’s iPhone To Keep It From Locking
According to the BBC reports, the police in the UK has developed a new strategy to recover data quickly and securely similar to that of San Bernardino cases. But, in this case, the UK police actually wanted to avoid a case similar to FBI’s when Apple rejected to help to unlock an iPhone which was actually used by a terrorist.
Hence, the UK police intended a plan, in which they decided to steal the iPhone from the suspect while he was using it. As the UK police know very well that what difficulties does the FBI faced while unlocking the terrorist iPhone. Thus, the UK police simply want to avoid the safety barriers that we all have in our iPhone ‘access code and the fingerprint’.
According to a report published by the BBC, “Gabriel Yew had been under investigation for the suspected manufacture of fake cards that gangs were using across Europe to buy luxury goods. Detectives suspected that he was using an iPhone exclusively to communicate to other members of the network but knew if they arrested him, he could refuse to unlock it and they would never see incriminating evidence”.
An iPhone could play a vital role in the investigation of a crime ring that would involve using fake credit cards simply cards to purchase high-priced products, which were then eventually sold for cash in the United Kingdom.
Even, UK Police officers also considered that the information that could help them during the investigation could be available on the iPhone. As the owner was known as a very circumspect person who simply always keeps his iPhone locked and to protect all his data he simply uses the security passcode.
However, to achieve the suspect’s iPhone, the UK police plotted a plan in which they organized a street robbery simply to snatch the suspect’s iPhone while it is unlocked. When the UK police managed to rob the iPhone, they simply keep swiping through screens to keep the iPhone unlock, until the investigators managed to extract all data from the device.
After successfully retrieving the data from the iPhone, the UK police found that Gabriel Yew had orders for hundreds’ of blank credit cards. And not only that as the Gabriel Yew is not the only who is linked with this case, along with the UK Police has also traced 100 other possible suspects. Hence, Gabriel Yew pleaded guilty to fraud and weapons offenses and was jailed for five and a half years at Blackfriars Crown Court.