NEWTON Abbot MP Martin Wrigley has accused by tech firms of profiting from phone snatching operations.

Mr Wrigley, a member of Parliament’s science and technology committee, said giant Apple and Goggle were continuing the make money as they failed to remove stolen phones from their systems.

Committee members accused the tech companies of profiting from multimillion-pound phone-snatching operations police say are masterminded by organised crime gangs.

In evidence to the House of Commons science and technology committee, the Metropolitan Police wanted smartphone companies to start preventing stolen devices accessing cloud services so they were no longer ‘smart’, dramatically reducing their resale value.

So far they have not agreed, said Darren Scates, the Met’s chief digital data and technology officer.

Mr Wrigley, a Liberal Democrat member of the committee, said: ‘Apple and Google continue to make profit and continue to sell more phones because these phones are not removed from the system.

‘You [the companies] owe it to customers around the world to implement this immediately. No ifs, no buts, just do it.’

Representatives of the firms pointed to other security features, particularly those that protect customer data.

Simon Wingrove, software engineering manager at Google, said its system was ‘robust and works very well’.

Gary Davis, senior director in regulatory and legal at Apple, said it was concerned about disconnections being used for fraud.

Conservative Kit Malthouse, former policing minister, felt Apple was ‘dragging your feet and sitting behind this is a very strong commercial incentive’.

Davis responded: ‘I don’t believe we are profiting.

‘It is necessary to refute the suggestion we benefit from our users somehow suffering the traumatic event of having their phone stolen and being disconnected from their lives.’

Most phones being stolen are the most expensive Apple versions, which police believe are specifically targeted and sell on the street for between £300 and £400.

It is estimated more than 90per cent of stolen phones are reused while the rest are stripped for parts.