Hello and welcome to Business Daily. I'm Deborah Weitzman. Today we're digging into the dark economy of stolen smartphones and the sensitive data that they carry.

They were then able to spend thousands using the cards that were in my mobile wallet.

It's organised, lucrative and I know that firsthand. My phone was snatched on a London street, now Europe's

hotspot for this crime. They laugh, really, how easy it is for them to get away with multiple

thefts within a half-hour period. I was left stunned and disconnected, but that's exactly when the clock starts ticking.

It's all about that golden hour to make sure you block that phone and stop people from

accessing any of the information. I acted fast, but then came the twist, scam messages trying to

trick me into handing over my pin, and a week later, my phone reappeared in China.

Within a couple of days, your phone will be on a different continent.

The people that steal the phones on the streets from you are just the foot soldiers.

That's all coming up on the BBC World Service.

I bought her around the drinks, took two or three steps away from the bar and felt my pocket go light and the phone was gone.

That's James O'Sullivan.

His phone was stolen during a night out at a sports bar in Dublin, Ireland.

It was kind of like a, I could probably go and deal with this.

I didn't have the urgency at that stage that I would have today

because I thought, well, they haven't got my face, they can't sign it.

Within 11 minutes, the thieves emptied his bank accounts.

So at the time I didn't know this, but what transpired in the following sort of minutes

and hours leads me to believe that they had seen me use the pin because they were then able

to spend nearly £25,000 using the cards that were in my mobile wallet.

That's around $34,000.

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