Almost all of the country’s top 100 theft hotspots are in London, according to stark data that shows how brazen thieves are running rampant through the capital.
Infested with scooter-riding phone snatchers, MailOnline can today reveal that Oxford Street – Europe’s busiest shopping hub – is the nation’s theft epicentre.
Thefts are most rife in one single neighbourhood running from Bond Street through Oxford Circus and into Soho, littered with high-end fashion boutiques. More than 7,220 thefts were recorded in 2024 in that sector.
According to our analysis, presented in an interactive map below, this equates to a rate of 3,167 thefts per 1,000 residents – the most of all nearly 36,000 neighbourhoods in England and Wales.
A neighbouring zone, which includes the eastern part of Oxford Street and stretches through East Marylebone in the north to Tottenham Court Road, came second (2,837 thefts per 1,000 people).
Tourists and commuters have had smartphones snatched in broad daylight, bags pilfered in pubs and valuables stolen from locked cars. Crooks have been given a ‘licence to steal’ by police inaction, critics say.
Using official crime figures collated by police forces, the maps break down crime rates by local neighbourhoods – so-called ‘Lower layer Super Output Areas’ (LSOAs) – of roughly 1,000 to 2,000 people.
Each is rated by offences per 1,000 population, so you can see exactly where your area stands on thefts.
To find your district, simply select your local police force from the dropdown list and zoom into wherever you want to search.
Neighbourhoods are named by the electoral ward within an authority, meaning bordering areas may appear with the same name but have different statistics. That is because each ward may have numerous LSOAs.
The LSOA including central Oxford Street, technically called E05013808, which topped the charts, is in the West End ward of Westminster Council.
However, there are six instances of ‘West End’ on our map in Central London.
By tapping or hovering over the area in the map, you can also see the total number of thefts logged, as well as the crime density (reports per square mile).
The statistics include all alleged crimes reported and given a crime number, regardless of the outcome of any investigation. The figures only include ‘theft from the person’ as bike thefts and other thefts are recorded separately.
No data is available for Greater Manchester Police because it has not updated its figures since July 2019.
Our analysis also excludes crimes committed on trains or at train stations because they are dealt with by the British Transport Police, rather than the local force.
Last September, video caught the moment a brazen phone snatcher on an e-bike stole a woman’s phone in Oxford Street in broad daylight.
Footage filmed by an internet streamer showed the woman standing close to a tube exit on her way to work looking at her phone, before the thief silently approached and grabbed the phone before escaping.
Moment the bike thief snatches the phone on his e-bike near Oxford Circus tube station
The neighbourhood featuring Leicester Square and Covent Garden ranked third, with 4,356 thefts reported to the police last year, a rate of 2,398.
Other areas of London with high rates of theft include the area covering Stratford International Station (947 or 591 per 1,000), the Strand and Temple area (1,221 or 570 per 1,000), Camden Town and Market (746 or 494 per 1,000) and the Borough/London Bridge area (900 or 434 per 1,000).
Thefts in the capital hit a record high of more than 450,000 last year under Mayor Sadiq Khan, according to Home Office data.
This comes after new data this week showed that mobile phone thefts in the capital have tripled in the past four years.
More than 70,000 phones were stolen in the streets of London last year – often by gang members on e-bikes and scooters who then sell on the stolen tech to China and Nigeria for parts.
The crime epidemic is believed the cost British consumers as much as £70m a year.
The data, from an FOI request to the Met Police, is thought to be a significant underestimate of the true scale of the problem because it only includes thefts reported to the force.
Celebrities including Lady Victoria Hervey and Kym Marsh have had their phones stolen in the capital.
Lady Hervey told how her phone was taken in Pimlico after she left a London Fashion Week event. She said a man on an e-bike riding past snatched the device out of her hands.
Earlier this week, Marsh told Morning Live how she had her phone stolen two weeks ago on Buckingham Palace Road.
She said: ‘It is quite a scary thing to happen to you, you’re walking down a road and then all of a sudden something’s taken out of your hand.
‘And that was about a fortnight ago that was taken from me. But thankfully I was okay.
‘I felt really vulnerable, I was really shaken. I immediately wanted to get help but, of course, it’s not so easy when you don’t have your phone.’
She went on to share her devastation at losing messages sent to her by her father before her death, adding she will ‘never get [them] back’.
The Met has taken efforts to ramp up its response to the phone snatching gangs, and have increased plain-clothed officer patrols in the hardest hit areas.
Last month, the force arrested 230 people and seized 1,000 devices in a week-long blitz.
More than 70,000 phones were snatched in the streets of London alone in 2024, out of an estimated 100,000 thefts across the UK
Thieves have been tracked racing across the capital, although 40 percent of thefts take place in just one borough
Outside of London, the highest theft hotspot is the area encompassing New Street Station in the West Midlands capital of Birmingham.
The neighbourhood, which also includes Victoria Square, saw 267 thefts last year, or 216 per 1,000 residents.
The section of Sheffield city centre which includes City Hall saw 207 robberies, 130 per 1,000 residents, last year.
Police are set to get new powers to enter properties without a warrant if tracking apps such as ‘Find My Phone’ show stolen gadgets are inside.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said last month that the move was aimed at giving officers the ability to act swiftly against phone snatchers.
The ‘warrantless powers of entry’ powers could also be used to seize other high-value items fitted with tracking devices, such as bicycles and will be included in Labour’s flagship Crime and Policing Bill, published today.
Currently, police must obtain a warrant to search for stolen goods.
Home Office sources said there would be an ‘expectation’ that police would make full use of the new powers.
However, it is unclear whether they could be successfully deployed in blocks of flats.
Officers will require sufficient evidence that stolen goods are inside a particular dwelling, and ‘geolocation’ devices may not provide information that is precise enough.
Ms Cooper said at the time: ‘It is extremely frustrating for victims when they can see exactly where their stolen phone has gone but nothing is done.
‘That is why we are determined to give the police the powers they need to move fast to crack down on these crimes that are blighting our communities.’
