A London visitor has made a remarkable recovery after digging up her stolen mobile phone from a public park, exposing a concerning new tactic used by thieves across the capital.
The Snatch and the Search
Agiimaa Oyungerel, 35, had her Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra snatched from her hands by a man on a bicycle outside Surrey Quays train station on Saturday, December 20. The journalist and content creator, who is visiting from Mongolia to see her husband, was on her way to a car boot sale at the time. Despite giving chase, she was no match for the cyclist who sped away.
Her hopes of seeing the device again were low. However, staff at a nearby HNT Pawnbrokers shop revealed a chilling detail: another person had been targeted in an identical theft just moments before. This prompted Agiimaa to use Google's Find My Device tracking service. Two hours after the theft, the signal led her to Pepys Park in Lewisham.
Kneeling and Digging for a Discovery
Upon arriving at the park, Agiimaa began a frantic search. "I kneeled on all fours digging through dirt and leaves and branches," she recounted. Her persistence paid off when her hand touched something hard. Not only did she find her own phone, but she unearthed four others buried alongside it.
"They were all iPhones except mine," she noted. The discovery aligns with emerging police intelligence about a growing trend of thieves concealing stolen devices in soil, often in garden beds and under trees. The method, first reported in central London's Phoenix Garden, is believed to allow criminals to avoid carrying multiple phones and to wait for police tracking efforts to cool off before retrieving and selling the devices overseas.
A Spreading Threat and Police Response
The incident near Surrey Quays raises alarms that this buried phone tactic is spreading beyond the West End. Agiimaa personally delivered the five recovered phones to a police station, expressing fear that the perpetrator, still at large, could target her again. "I don't feel really safe... I don't feel like going out on my own," she admitted.
She expressed bewilderment at the thief's error in not disabling the tracker, calling it a "rookie mistake." While relieved at her luck, she hopes the police will successfully investigate and return the other phones to their owners. The Metropolitan Police has been approached for comment on this specific case and the wider trend.
This event serves as a stark warning to Londoners about the evolving methods of street criminals and underscores the critical importance of using device-tracking features immediately after a theft.
