A Walthamstow man has been jailed for nine years for his part in what the Metropolitan Police describe as the UK's largest mobile phone smuggling network.
Ismat Miakhel, 33, of The Drive, Walthamstow, was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Friday 25 September alongside two other men. Between them they received 25 years.
Miakhel was convicted of conspiracy to receive stolen mobile phones, conspiracy to transfer and export stolen mobile phones, and participating in the activities of an organised crime group. He had pleaded guilty in April.
Amir Muhammad Khadikhel, 35, of Eastway, Wanstead, was jailed for nine and a half years for the same three offences. Mansoor Mohammed, 30, of High Road, Wood Green, received six and a half years for conspiracy to receive stolen mobile phones and participating in the activities of an organised crime group.
How the case came together
The investigation, Operation Echosteep, began in December 2024, when around 1,000 iPhones bound for Hong Kong were found at a warehouse near Heathrow Airport. Almost all of them had been stolen.
After a year-long inquiry, detectives established that the men were responsible for trafficking up to 40,000 stolen mobile phones from the UK to China across 2024 and 2025. That haul is believed to account for around 40 per cent of all phones stolen in London during that period.
Khadikhel and Miakhel were arrested on 23 September 2025. Officers recovered several hundred phones from their vehicle and seized a further 2,000 devices from linked properties. Mohammed was identified, arrested and charged after that.
What the Met says
Commander Andy Featherstone said: "Today's sentences send a clear message: if you steal phones, we'll come after you."
The force says phone theft and robbery offences across London have fallen by 20 per cent this year, meaning more than 9,000 fewer victims. In Westminster, the reduction is close to 50 per cent.
