The Value of Unlocked iPhones on the Black Market

Over the past few years, there’s been a dramatic increase in iPhone snatching as the preferred theft method for crooks. While part of that is arguably a matter of convenience — it’s easier to get an iPhone out of someone’s hand than their pocket or purse — it turns out there’s a far more subtle and insidious reason: an unlocked iPhone is far more valuable.

That’s because Apple has done an excellent job of making stolen iPhones nearly useless to thieves. In 2013, Apple added Activation Lock in iOS 7, effectively turning stolen iPhones into bricks unless a thief could provide the credentials of the original owner. Initially, this led to a dramatic reduction in iPhone thefts as thieves decided Apple devices simply weren’t worth the trouble.

Of course, while some criminals are idiots, many of the bad actors of the world are smarter than the average bear. It didn’t take long for professional thieves to come up with all sorts of clever tricks that turned iPhones back into desirable targets. Granted, there’s still no way to bypass the Activation Lock, but that doesn’t stop crooks from using phishing and other social engineering tactics to attempt to con the original owner into supplying their password or even removing the Activation Lock.

Incidents of theft also gradually rose again as iPhone repairs got more expensive. A stolen device might not be usable on its own, but it could be mined for parts such as displays, cameras, and batteries, which could then be sold on the black market, ultimately finding their way to less ethical discount repair shops. Apple soon countered this by adding Activation Lock for iPhone parts, ensuring a display or other key part placed in a different iPhone would refuse to function without the original owner’s Apple Account and password.

Sadly, these restrictions haven’t entirely dried up the market for stolen iPhones. While many crime rings end up with bricks, they presumably manage to trick enough of their victims into unknowingly removing the Activation Lock to make it worthwhile. However, it turns out that these are still traded at a significant discount compared to an iPhone that’s already unlocked.

The Lucrative Unlocked iPhone Market

According to a recent report by Wired’sMatt Burgess (Apple News+), an unlocked iPhone can be worth four to ten times more on the black market compared to a locked one. In raw dollars, that’s up to $800 more.

Dan Guido, the CEO and cofounder of security firm Trail of Bits and a strategic adviser to mobile security firm iVerify, says a stolen phone may only be worth $50 to $200 when it is locked. “But if you unlock it, it’s worth $500, or it’s worth $1,000.” That difference can encourage people to develop ways to try and get into devices. “This whole thing is an ecosystem, and there’s multiple people at different levels of the supply chain that all work together in order to unlock phones,” he says.

Matt Burgess, Wired

Although Apple’s new Stolen Device Protection feature should dissuade thieves nearly as effectively as Activation Lock, since it enforced biometric authentication for any significant security changes, it wasn’t enabled by default until recently (in iOS 26.4), which means a lot of folks don’t use it.

However, it’s also no longer just about the phone. Years ago, the hardware was the target of most iPhone thefts. Crooks could be nosy opportunists, but generally as long as you had a secure password they were much more likely to just wipe the iPhone and sell it off to the highest bidder.

Today, the information we store on our iPhones is far more valuable than the hardware itself, particularly since most thefts are now part of organized crime rings. The crook who steals your iPhone may not be, but it’s almost guaranteed that the people they’re selling it to are — and they’re far more interested in finding ways to separate you from your money.

“Phone thieves don’t just want the handset—they want access to bank accounts and personal information,” says Will Lyne, the head of economic and cybercrime at London’s Metropolitan Police. Lyne highlights one case of four men who had been caught handling more than 5,000 stolen phones and spending money from financial accounts on the devices.

Matt Burgess, Wired

Burgess’ report delves into the reality of an entire “stolen-phone unlocking economy” made up of dozens of groups that sell unlocking tools and services “mostly with a focus on iPhones.” Researchers at cybersecurity firm Infoblox have linked more than 10,000 phishing websites to these activities, with traffic to them having nearly quadrupled in the past year.

An unlocked iPhone may be the golden goose for these criminals, but those are still much harder to acquire. So, tools that can turn a $50 brick into an $800 cash cow are in high demand.

The Passport of a Stolen iPhone: From Toronto to Vietnam

While Burgess provides several examples, I can cite one from my own experience that illustrates how many levels an iPhone theft operates at.

In January 2025, my daughter’s iPhone 15 Pro was stolen from her pocket at a Value Village in downtown Toronto. She didn’t notice it was gone until it was far too late; she initially called me on her friend’s phone thinking she’d just misplaced it and hoping that I could use Find My to help her locate it by playing a sound. However, when I opened Find My, her iPhone was already half a dozen miles away. That was the point at which we knew it had been stolen.

The thief had been clever enough to turn the iPhone off, as it didn’t respond to a remote wipe request or show any other signs of being on. It remained trackable thanks to Apple’s AirTag-style tracking features; it was able to report its location in over Bluetooth to other nearby Apple devices.