Police in London, UK mounted a series of raids on retailers suspected of involvement in mobile phone insurance fraud. Rogue sales staff have apparently advising customers who have lost their mobile phones to report them as stolen, so that they can claim on the insurance and get a new handset.

The move comes after studies estimated that of the 70,000 reported handset thefts last year, as much as 40,000 could have been bogus reports, allowing the customer to make a fake claim on their insurance for a replacement handset.

Police have arrested twelve retail staff in different shops - when shops were dealing with customers - to give maximum exposure to the raids. Arrests took place at Phones 4u, Carphone Warehouse and the retail outlets operated by the four network operators as well as some independent retailers. Undercover police had visited 98 shops prior to the raid to decide which were the worst cases of fraud.