The Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) has revealed that 21 mobile phones valued at more than 18 million shillings are stolen every day.
The Director Criminal Investigations Department, Tom Magambo said in the report that a total of 7,330 cases of stolen mobile phones were recorded in 2024.
This translates into 21 phones stolen from Uganda each day and most of these are smartphones. “We recorded 7,330 cases of mobile phone thefts in 2024. Most of these cases occurred as a result of snatching from unsuspicious members of the public. Kampala North had the highest cases of phone thefts,” Magambo said.
Joe Mukasa a mobile phone dealer at Wilson Street said mobile phone thefts have been exacerbated by the fact that there are people buying phones from strangers on the streets. Mukasa said every day he sees people buying expensive phones cheaply from strangers standing on verandas.
“I think the police haven’t done enough to fight phone theft crime. How can someone sell a mobile which we sell in our shops for one million at 500,000 shillings and he is not arrested? If police wanted, they would deploy covert officers to arrest these people selling phones on verandas,” Mukasa said.
Eria Katumba who has lost two smartphones in the last two years but was never recovered despite his reporting to the police, said criminals have also learnt that there are weaknesses in tracking mobile phone snatchers.
“I was walking between Yamaha Centre and Energy when a thug snatched my smartphone which I had held for almost two months. I quickly reported at a nearby police post but it was never recovered. I thought by quickly reporting, I was going to be helped. But I was wrong. I lost my phone which I had bought 1.2 million shillings,” Katumba said.
Magambo indicates that recovering stolen mobile phones is still a challenge to CID and its sister security forces. This is reflected in the very few cases of mobile phones that were successfully probed and phones recovered last year.
According to CID, all the total cases of mobile phone thefts recorded in 2024 translated to 6.79 shillings. However, CID detectives in collaboration with other security agencies only recovered mobile phones valued at 1.19 billion shillings. This implies mobile phones valued at 5.59 billion shillings were not recovered.