At a glance
A ruthless gang of robbers raided EE stores across London to steal handsets worth around £250,000
Staff were left terrified and traumatised by the raids, when threats were used to force them to open up the offices
At court, a judge imposed lengthy jail terms on the thieves
An organised crime gang who stole phones worth nearly a quarter of million pounds in a three-month reign of terror over London’s EE stores have been jailed.
Shop staff were left traumatised and in fear of their safety after groups of hooded and masked young men stormed their stores and forced them to open the safes.
The thieves threatened to stab one worker in the neck if he did not comply with their wishes, Kingston crown court heard.
The Metropolitan Police recovered clues at the scenes of the raids, including dropped latex gloves covered in DNA, and put the robbery gang under surveillance.
Some of the gang members were caught in a car fleeing the scene, with a “robbery kit” of gloves, masks, and balaclavas still in the getaway vehicle.
Others were caught red-handed inside an EE store as they attempted to force staff to open the safe.
The court heard the thieves targeted EE stores across London, with £41,000 of goods stolen from the Holloway Road branch, £42,000 of handsets taken in Eltham, a £53,000 phone raid on Chiswick high street, £46,000 stolen in Notting Hill Gate, and a £55,000 raid in Putney.
Other attempted robberies were thwarted when the gang turned up after staff had closed the shop, brave workers managed to press a panic alarm, and in one instance when a staffer collapsed with a panic attack as the robbery unfolded.
In one attempted raid, the gang were scared off because police officers happened to be nearby, dealing with a shoplifter.
On Friday, Judge Simon Heptonstall jailed nine members of the gang who had all taken part in multiple robberies.
David Akintola, 25, who was linked to all but one of the raids, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison.
Mushtakim Miah, 25, the only defendant to not plead guilty and stand trial, was jailed for eight and a half years.
James Adodo, 25, was jailed for ten years, David Okewole, 24, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison, Ayomide Olaribiro, 22, was jailed for four and a half years, Nelson Joel, 28, received a sentence of three years and three months, Olabiyi Obasa, 29, was jailed for three-and-a-half years, Michael Babo, 25, was jailed for six years and ten months, and Robert Hills, 21, was sentenced to five years and three months.
Laville Bloise, 25, was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence by the judge, after he admitted involvement in one of the attempted robberies.
At the start of the sentencing hearing last month, some of the victims detailed to the court the impact that the robberies have had on their lives.
Showkarth Ali was working alone at the EE store on Balham High Road when, at 3.30pm on September 29 last year four hooded and masked men walked in.
They demanded the keys to the staff office, and one shouted at him: “Open the f***ing door, it’s going to get long for you, I’m going to stab you in your throat”.
“This incident has left me feeling shocked and overall frightened”, said Mr Ali. “People nowadays are being stabbed over mobile phones and this is exactly what was going on through my mind.”
Emila Braddon, an EE worker in Holloway Road, said this was the second robbery she had fallen victim to.
Masked men stormed the shop just before closing time, using threats to get access to the safe to steal rucksacks full of phones.
“I had a genuine belief that if my male colleagues had not intervened and if (the robbers) did not get access to the safe they would seriously hurt my colleagues and I”, she said.
One of the thieves shouted "if you comply no one will get hurt" as they forced staff to open the stockroom at the Notting Hill Gate branch of EE on October 29 last year.
One of the staff, Foyza Ahmed, told the court: “I am not going to be able to shake this out of my head anytime soon as nothing like this ever happened to me before.
“I believe I am going to be worried and anxious when coming to work thinking we could get robbed again.”
Twisha Rajapara said the fear of a repeat of the robbery “gets worse nearing Christmas which is coming up”.
“I don’t want to work here anymore because I am scared”, she said.
The court heard a raid on a Clapham EE shop on November 8 was thwarted when four masked men arrived but staff at the store had closed up slightly early.
But the gang returned two days later, just before midday, and pushed a staff member in to the back room with demands to open the safe.
But the robbery was unsuccessful as the staff member became dizzy and collapsed with a panic attack, needing emergency treatment, and the thieves fled empty-handed.
Their car was stopped by police 18 minutes after leaving the scene, when Akintola was caught in the process of changing his clothes, and officers recovered gloves, balaclavas, masks, and clothes used in the raid.
Adodo was involved in two raids on EE stores in Fulham and Kilburn with Obasa, Olaribiro, and Joel.
In the first, the thieves used a PIN to enter the store room, one of the staff members was grabbed on the arm, but he managed to break free to flee and ring 999.
The court heard the robbers were heard shouting “abort, abort” before fleeing with handsets worth just under £2,000.
As the net tightened on the gang, Adodo was put under surveillance and officers watched as he visited the Kilburn store which the gang planned to target the following day.
On the day of the raid, police tracked a convoy of cars from Dartford to Kilburn, and they swooped when the robbers were in the store forcing a staff member to open the safe.
“This case relates to a linked series of ‘back office’ robberies and attempted robberies of phone shops committed by an organised crime group, across the period from September 2 to 19 November 2024”, said prosecutor David Markham.
“An investigation uncovered the involvement of a combination of these defendants in at least 13 offences, with a total loss to the victim company approaching £250,000.
“The group primarily targeted EE Stores and the stock stolen was predominantly Apple products.
“The modus operandi involves the robbers entering shops and heading directly to the back office areas.
“They subdued staff by the threat of violence created by the sheer weight of numbers of assailants and occasionally by verbal demands, with the intimation that one or more of them had a weapon concealed about their person.
“They told staff if they offered no resistance, they would be unharmed. Staff were forced to open safes which contained significant stock of high value.”
The court heard two robbers were generally deployed at the back of the stores to load bags with stolen phones.
The other two were on the shop floor subduing customers and staff, or acting as a lookout at the front door.
Olaribiro was sentenced in 2021 for robberies, including an incident at Rochester station in 2019 when two brothers were forced to hand over air pods at knifepoint. Later the same day, the group including Olaribiro slashed at a train passenger with a knife, issuing threats if he did not hand over his possessions.
Obasa, of Norfolk Close, Dartford, Olaribiro, of Warrior Square, Newham, Nelson, 28, of St Martins Road, Dartford , Babo, of Gilbert Close, Greenwich, Akintola, of Samuel Street, Woolwich, and Okewole, 24, of Quayside Drive, Colchester, all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob.
Adodo, of St Martin's Lane, Dartford, pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy to rob.
Miah, of Artillery Place, Plumstead, was found guilty by a jury of the same charge, and Bloise, of Goldcrest Close, Thamesmead, admitted involvement in a single attempted robbery.
Hills, of Mayfield Road, Gravesend, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rob, and also admitted supplying a controlled drug to a prisoner when he handed £600 of cannabis to convicted murderer, Chaklie Gondladieu, during a visit to HMP Belmarsh in April last year.
Detective Constable Stephen O'Connell, who led the investigation from the Met’s Flying Squad, said: “This case shows the Met’s continued determination to tackle organised phone theft and robbery. Officers used forensic and digital techniques to identify and arrest those responsible and bring them to justice.
“We know how much distress these crimes cause to staff and the impact on businesses. We’re dismantling criminal networks at every level, from street-level thieves to organised crime groups – and we will continue to work with retail and industry partners to identify and arrest offenders.”
Alex Towers, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at BT Group, thanked police for catching the gang, and said: “We take the safety and wellbeing of our employees and customers extremely seriously and have long collaborated with law enforcement on cases like this.
“We will continue to do all we can to tackle this sort of theft through our own advanced security measures and shared efforts with the police.”
