Stolen Smartphones as an Illicit Market: Trafficking Chains and Policing Limits in Peru

This article examines stolen smartphones as an illicit market in Peru, sustained by trafficking chains, specialised intermediaries, and adaptable resale infrastructures. Drawing on a concurrent mixed-methods design, the study combines national victimisation survey data, telecommunications administrative records, police complaint data, spatial analysis, qualitative interviews with police officers, prosecutors, and former officials, ethnographic observation in illegal resale markets, and documentary review. The findings show that smartphone theft is not a set of isolated street offences but a multi-stage trafficking process involving victimisation, storage, revictimisation, reprogramming, distribution, and resale. This chain enables stolen devices to circulate across local, national, and cross-border markets, while exposing victims to secondary harms such as fraud, identity misuse, and financial losses. The study further finds a structural mismatch between the organisation of this illicit market and state responses. Although police interventions combine prevention and investigation, they remain fragmented across isolated offences, procedural stages, and segmented institutional competencies. As a result, enforcement tends to target visible points of the market, particularly street theft and retail resale, while leaving the broader trafficking chain relatively intact. Reframing smartphone theft as an illicit market highlights the institutional and coordination challenges involved in disrupting high-volume property crime economies.