AN Acton man was among  four defendants jailed for handling more than 5,000 stolen phones.

Two of the group were convicted for spending thousands of pounds from their victims’ bank accounts following a police operation.

Over an 18-month period, the group handled phones that had been stolen from across London.

Two of the men made purchases or took out loans using the devices, with the cost of their crimes totalling £5.1m. Officers believe many of the devices were then sold abroad.

Sentenced today (28) were  Nazih Cheraitia, 34, of Wales Farm Road, Acton, along with Zakaria Senadjki,  31, Ahmed Belhanafi, 25, and Riyadh  Mamouni, 25, all of Notting Hill.

They were sentenced to between eight years and two years eight months.

Commander Owain Richards said: “We do not underestimate the impact these crimes have on Londoners and are doing all we can to tackle phone thefts.

“However, we need the phone companies to play their part and make it more difficult for criminals to re-sell these stolen devices.”

Phone users should take simple steps to further protect themselves from fraud, by ensuring they have a strong password, two-factor authentication and turn off message previews.

That way, thieves cannot see any messages about reset or log in codes when phones are locked.

Last year, more than 64,000 mobile phones were reported to the police as stolen in London.