NYPD: Thieves Want Phones, iPads More than Cash

An e-crime wave is sweeping the city with iPads, smartphones and other pricey devices now more popular with Big Apple thieves than even cold hard cash, cops say.

Half of the nearly 16,000 robberies in New York over the first 10 months of this year involved the trendy gadgets — mostly cell phones, an NYPD study found.

“This makes electronics the single most stolen property type, surpassing even hard currency,” says the report.

The thieves’ most wanted gadget is the iPhone, which accounts for over 70% of all stolen cell phones on subways and buses, the NYPD analysis reveals.

Computers, tablets and MP3 players also account for nearly half the burglaries and 35% of all grand larcenies citywide, police said.

“The problem of electronic device theft has grown exponentially, but can and must be controlled,” the report warns.

And the numbers are much likely worse, the police report says, because police record-keeping — hampered by poor report-taking and forms lacking more descriptive terminology — needs to be improved.

“We cannot identify what devices are stolen where or at what times,” the report says.

The internal report, ordered by Deputy Commissioner of Operations Patrick Timlin and obtained exclusively by the Daily News, lays out a multipronged strategy to combat the surge in smartphone ripoffs.

The proposed solutions? Better record-keeping, more sting operations and a legislative push to disable stolen devices.

Sen. Chuck Schumer in August called on phone carriers to mimic their counterparts in Western Europe, where a single database stores each device’s identification number and existing technology disables a stolen device.

He has recommended a “blacklist” so stolen devices can’t be used with any network. In the U.S., carriers will shut off a stolen phone, but thieves armed with a different SIM card can still use the phone.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said that cell phone companies have balked at the high cost of using the technology so the NYPD will push for legislation that would force carriers to adopt the European system.

The high price tag and high demand of personal computer products have created a black market around the city, where thieves sell the ill-gotten goods to shady pawnshops and bodegas that launder them for sale locally and abroad, according to the report.

Police plan to conduct reverse stings, having cops pose as thieves looking to sell stolen devices to bodegas, some of which are known to offer teens $100 for anything they can steal, sources said.

The report also calls for a public awareness campaign that includes movie theater announcements and airing in the subway system videos of actual thefts so straphangers can learn to protect their property.

“It’s a sound strategy designed to suppress larcenies on several fronts simultaneously,” Kelly said of the report.

New Yorkers have been well-aware of the crime trend.

Sheba Clayman, 30, of Astoria, said she keeps her iPhone in her pockets at all times.

“I just take it out of my pocket to make a call or check emails and it goes back into my pant pockets,” Clayman said. “I know people are stealing them more than before. A lot of my friends have had theirs stolen.”