Fears for security following Nokia theft

Violent gang steal £2m worth of handsets

Channel members are being warned to step up their security precautions following a violent warehouse robbery in Surrey last week.

An investigation is continuing after more than £2m worth of Nokia mobile phones were stolen from Hawk Precision Logistics's Heathrow warehouse by a gang of at least five men.

Two members of staff, both in their 20s, were kidnapped at gunpoint the night before the robbery, forced into a white van and taken to an unknown location where they were held captive all night.

The following day they were doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight unless they opened the warehouse. Once they had gained access to the site, the thieves stole pallets of new shrink-wrapped Nokia 8850 phones, destined for distribution across Europe.

A Surrey Police representative said that Hawk Precision Logistics already had good security, but the gang was a "professional one that had done its homework".

"Surrey police would point out that there have been a number of robberies and hijacks involving the theft of mobile phones over the past year and would urge freight and storage companies handling this kind of product to take extra precautions," she said.

Meanwhile, two men have been jailed for a total of nine years after their part in a lorry hijack in the Stanwell area last year when mobile phones worth almost £500,000 were snatched.

West Lothian police are still investigating the theft of around £1m worth of phones from Motorola's Bathgate factory last month. Two men have so far been arrested and released on bail.