We ask Londoners about the police initiative to spray fake blue plaques warning of phone snatches.
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00:00Fake blue plaques have been spray-painted onto pavements here in the City of London
00:05to mark where mobile phones have been stolen here in the city.
00:10The City of London Police said the aim of the signs was to raise awareness and help
00:15reduce the £50m a year trade in stolen phones that happen in the capital.
00:21The force said it had recovered over 1,000 stolen phones in the last two years but said
00:26less than half could be returned because the owner could not be located.
00:29It is advising Londoners to set up a medical ID contact on their phone to allow police
00:35to access next-of-kin details if needed.
00:38Sergeant Mark Canoe said raising awareness was important and it's not just about the
00:43physical device being stolen.
00:45He said this is what the criminals can get from that device.
00:49Fraud equates to £7,000 a day which goes into organised crime group networks in the
00:54city.
00:55As part of its crackdown on phone snatching, the City of London Police said it was on a
01:00drive to tackle illegal e-bikes on the roads.
01:04But how do Londoners feel about these new plaques, about phone snatching in the capital?
01:08Do they think it will be effective and how safe do they feel?
01:12I don't think it's a good idea because it's just creating more mess to the London street.
01:17There's already enough mess, they could invest the money to do something else.
01:22Yes, there is a risk of phones being stolen, but maybe have one of these?
01:26Yes, yes, I think it's a great idea and actually each time when I'm walking here, I usually
01:31keep my phone very strong in my hands.
01:35And my friends are usually saying like, you're crazy, you just can join work calls from your
01:40phone walking on Oxford Street, but it's so dangerous.
01:43So everyone is saying that.
01:46Thank God, I never felt that, no one stole my phone yet, hopefully.
01:52But yeah, I think it's a great idea to mark, so people understand where it's more dangerous.
01:58Basically, it's because of social media platform, most of the people are aware about this, until
02:07unless we are not having this sort of issue, we sometimes like, okay, it's not going to
02:12happen to me.
02:13What has been done is done.
02:15No, somebody's tried, but they didn't get to it because I had it around my neck, just
02:19like the little thing, the yawn actually helped.
02:22Yeah, this is a good idea for the spray.
02:24Another idea should be is like a colour.
02:28So when you know this colour, goes the red zone, blue zone, something like that.
02:33So at least when we're on the phone or we are walking around, we know this is the red zone.
02:39They should do other stuff, like they should like start hiring like more police officers
02:44that actually know what they're doing.
02:46They have a lot of young people who don't know what they're doing, and they're not preventing
02:50any crimes.
02:52Painting something on the floor would make a difference.
02:55It's just like having a bin and people store this out.