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The tube can be stressful at the best of times. It’s busy, it’s often running late, and on top of it all you’ve got to keep vigilant to ensure you don’t end up stepping off the carriage with fewer belongings than you had when you got on.
Phone theft has been a big problem in London in the past few years, but it’s not just drive-by robbers you have to be aware of. Nearly 11,000 mobiles were nicked from unsuspecting Underground passengers in 2024, but the risk is substantially higher on some lines than others, the Telegraph has revealed.
Based on statistics obtained from the Metropolitan Police via a Freedom of Information request (FOI), the newspaper reports that the Victoria line is the worst for phone thefts, with 2,034 devices stolen last year. This statistic is particularly alarming given the fact that the Victoria is the shortest line on the network (with the exception of the Waterloo and City line, which only serves two stations). For every mile of track used by the Victoria, 156 phones were stolen.
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The Central line had the second highest rates of stolen phones, with 1,902 thefts in 2024, and next came the Jubilee line, where some 1,804 people lost their handsets to pickpocketing.
You can relax a little more when you travel on the Metropolitan line. Only 411 phones were taken off the maroon line, a rate which is 75 percent lower than that of the Victoria.
Interestingly, the low-level lines (the ones which go deeper underground) were all worse off for phone thefts than those which stay closer to the service, with the exception of the Bakerloo line.
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The worst London Underground lines for phone thefts
Here’s every tube Line (except the Waterloo and City) ranked from worst to best in terms of how many phones were stolen from them last year, including the exact number of thefts that occurred.
- Victoria: 2,034
- Central: 1,902
- Jubilee: 1,804
- Piccadilly: 1,744
- Northern: 1,202
- District: 762
- Bakerloo: 536
- Circle/Hammersmith and City: 468
- Metropolitan: 411
You can read the Telegraph’s full lowdown here.
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