By L.B.Senaratne
A single smartphone can contain 0.034g of gold, 0.34g of silver, 0.015g of palladium and a sliver of platinum. There is also 25g of aluminium and a further 15g of copper inside a smartphone
Therefore b carful and let not you pjhone be stolen
.Shenzhen, once a sleepy fishing village just north of Hong Kong, is nowadays nicknamed China’s Silicon Valley because of its thriving economy built solely off innovation and tech. At the same time, however, the sprawling metropolis – home to almost 18million people – has found itself at the centre of China’s incredibly lucrative second-hand phone market.
After being shipped into the city by criminal accomplices exploiting its lax approach to enforcing laws around stolen goods, the handsets are sold second-hand if unlocked and returned to factory settings.
If the phones cannot be sold whole, they are dismantled and the component parts – such as the screen, motherboard and speaker – used for repairs, or even pieced together into entirely new handsets.
According to Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor for cybersecurity firm ESET, criminal gangs can use sophisticated phishing techniques to convince the owner to enter their login details to an authentic-looking website so they can gain control of the phone and potentially steal from their bank accounts. One victim had £55,000 transferred from her bank account by an Albanian crime gang this way.
They can also access the victim’s social media accounts such as Facebook and Instagram and attempt to exploit them by handing over more details.
Mr Moore said the gangs are able to exploit a loophole which blocks mobile phones stolen in the UK from being used again in countries in the EU, Australia, New Zealand and the US. However many parts of the globe, including China and Russia, do not use these ‘blacklists’, making them the ideal destination for stolen handsets.
If the criminals are unable to gain access to the phone, they will send it for recycling instead, using the good components to replace damaged items on other handsets before reselling them.
A single smartphone can contain 0.034g of gold, 0.34g of silver, 0.015g of palladium and a sliver of platinum. There is also 25g of aluminium and a further 15g of copper inside a smartphone.