Algerian Thieves' £50k haul from Nottingham clubbers

A GANG have been jailed over a "sophisticated" conspiracy targeting Nottingham clubbers for their mobile phones.

Expensive smart phones were stolen from handbags and pockets in bars and nightclubs and passed on for sale in Algeria.

Police uncovered the scam by chance – after a student at the University of Nottingham had her iPhone 4 stolen in Stealth nightclub.

She had downloaded an 'app' called Find My iPhone which allowed her to lock it and to track it.

The student logged onto her laptop and found her phone was at an address in Radford Boulevard.

She passed this information to detectives who found her phone and 58 others.

They had been taken from people in Stealth, Rock City, Market Bar, Ocean, Oceana, Coco Lounge and Red Bar.

Derby clubs Nono8 and Fever had also been targeted along with Embrace and Replica in Sheffield.

Algerians Karim Bousaboun and Mehamad Maddahi, both of Radford Boulevard, are believed to have made £51,488.71 from the scam.

Prosecutor Ian Way said a third man had been bailed and was believed to have left the country.

Bousaboun and Maddahi were jailed at Nottingham Crown Court yesterday for conspiracy to steal mobile phones.

Bousaboun, 25, who was found guilty after a trial, received four years, and Maddahi, 22, who pleaded guilty, got three.

Judge Andrew Hamilton said: "The two of you acted as a gang. You target young people in Nottingham clubs. They were easy prey. Young people have their phones about them at all times these days.

"As a gang you worked out a system whereby in fact one of the gang would take the phone out of the nightclub and hand it to the person waiting outside."

An Algerian man would collect the phones and take them out of the country.

"The fact is this netted you a considerable amount of money and this was clearly done as a very sophisticated scam," said the judge.

The woman who helped expose the scam said: "The night was ruined, so I went home and got straight on my laptop to see if I could find it on the 'Find My iPhone' app.

"They must have turned the phone off because the app couldn't find it, but at midday the next day they must have turned it on for a few minutes because I got a hit."

Detective Constable Perveez Rashid, of Radford Road CID, said 60 per cent of the phones they found had not been reported stolen and were presumed lost.

He urged people to pinlock phones, register them on the website www.immobilise.com and report a lost or stolen phone to police.

He said: "With Bousaboun and Maddahi now in jail, and their illicit enterprise dismantled, we have gone a long way to reducing this type of crime."