Ugandans lose 15 mobile phones every day worth Shs 4 billion a year to thieves, statistics by Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) indicate.
Data shows that thugs stole at least 5,630 phones in 2019 worth Shs 4.29 billion. Police investigators including the cyber-crime unit claim to have ably recovered mobile phones worth Shs 654 million.
The stolen phones in 2019 were the lowest compared to 2018 and 2017, where 6,205 and 6,177 telephones were stolen by thugs respectively. Most of the phones are stolen from Kampala city, Wakiso and Mukono districts. Sources from intelligence indicate that government also has "a network of its own thugs" they use to steal mobile phones which they use to piece together what people are sharing.
Statistics reveal that 1,688 mobile phones were stolen from people in Kampala alone in 2019, translating to 4 mobile phones being lost to criminals every day. CID set up a cybercrime unit three years ago purposely to deal with cyber fraud, phone tracking, electronic fraud, cyber impersonation and cyber harassment.
But the piecemeal recovery of stolen phones and tracking suspected thieves leave a question of whether the cybercrime unit can achieve the responsibilities it was formed for. Emma Semambo, a communication officer in one of the government departments alleges that police phone trackers are just after money.
Semambo bases his argument on the fact that he was charged money to track people who stole his laptop and two phones in 2018 but to date, the gadgets have never been recovered.
"Those people are money minded. Imagine I made a call to a policeman who they had told me is good at tracking phones. Even before listening to my full story, he asked me to pay Shs 200,000," Semambo said.
CID spokesperson, Charles Twine, insists that the cybercrime unit has been doing a recommendable job in tracking and recovering stolen phones. Twine said the phones have recovered but owners have never come to pick them. However, he does not give figures on unclaimed phones.
"We have done reasonable recoveries of phones to the extent that there are even some phones we have recovered and the owners are not aware. Efforts to contact them to come and pick their phones have been fruitless; because either they have changed lines or they are no longer interested. But also, by and large, we need to appreciate the fact that some of these phones cross borders. Phones from intelligence are taken to neighbouring countries especially Congo, Sudan as well as Rwanda. So it becomes very hard for us to continue tracking in areas where we have no jurisdiction and where there are no networks," said Twine.
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