The memory stealers

Simm theft - stealing computer microchips - is fast becoming the crime of the Nineties. Alister Morgan reports

"It's grown so much over the past year. Now everyone seems to be trying to get in on the act. The money can be very addictive; suddenly you've got pounds 5,000 in your hands," says Pascal.

Pascal is 21, lives in south London and until recently used to steal "simms", or computer memory chips. "Two or three years ago people were stealing Apple Macs, car stereos and mobile phones. But to steal computers you needed someone with a car. Then people began to realise that the memory chips, or simms, were worth big money."

Computer theft is the fastest-growing area of crime in the UK. In 1994 computer companies paid out in the region of pounds 175m-pounds 200m in claims for computer theft. Thieves have become increasingly knowledgeable about computers and their internal components and this year, memory chips have become a favoured target. Moreover, demand for the chips has risen since the launch of new software, notably Windows 95, which needs much more memory than the old programs. Few computers sold before this year have sufficient memory to run Windows 95 - and it costs about pounds 150 legitimately to upgrade a computer.

IBM Greenock was the victim of a simm heist last month after a shipment of memory chips and other computer components from Italy was hijacked. Trevor Littlecott, UK security manager for IBM, says, "I think an incident like this will focus the mind on international co-operation. It's not something the local police forces in the UK and Italy can handle, it needs international co-operation, and then you're talking Interpol." The charity Age Concern was another recent victim, and the Daily Express almost failed to publish after suffering a similar break-in.

The police have responded by launching "Operation Eastside". On 20 July, they made a series of raids in London, Leicester and Swindon and made 22 arrests. They seized pounds 100,000 worth of computer equipment. Between March and September this year, in just two London operations, a total of 70 people were arrested and pounds 1.5m of stolen computer equipment recovered. Some inside the computer industry argue that increasing prices are a direct consequence of the global epidemic of computer-related theft, which, they say, is largely due to memory chips.

A simm chip, or Intel chip, is about six inches long and an inch wide. It has a street value four times that of heroin and cocaine. "If the simms only have 1 megabyte of memory, you generally have to get together loads of chips before you can sell them," explains Pascal. "Four megabyte simms are worth more. You can sell one for about pounds 50. Eight megs are worth around pounds 100, but if you have a mixture of others to sell you can get much more for them. Sixteen-meg simms tend to triple in price because they're quite rare. You can get around pounds 400 for them. The problem is that the 4, 8 and the 16 all have 72 pins, and usually you can't tell which one you have just by looking at them."

At present it is not a criminal offence either to possess simms or to sell them on. "If you get stopped and searched by the police, they cannot link any one simm to any particular computer," says Pascal. "Any simm can work in any computer so they can't prove anything." A perceived lack of police powers, coupled with poor security, has created an attractive market for organised criminals and opportunist teenagers.

While acknowledging the existence of problems in identifying stolen computer equipment, Deputy Chief Inspector James Perry denies that simm theft is a "low-risk" crime. "Any burglary is a high-risk crime carrying a substantive sentence," he says. "There are crime prevention solutions on the market that use ultra-violet light and make the chips unique to each individual owner."

For their part, chip manufacturers are in the process of making their products easier to identify. "It is costing us money to combat crime," said Mike Sullivan, Intel spokesman, recently. "Since last year we have printed serial numbers on chips so they can be traced and provided products to the authorities for sting operations."

Despite these initiatives, minimum research is often sufficient for thieves to secure considerable rewards. "Kids buy computer magazines to find out what gear is on the market and the location of the warehouses," says Pascal. "With one Philips screwdriver and one normal one you can easily get into the back of most computers. Three floors of computers can be cleared out in an hour and a half, depending on how many simms you're after. It doesn't always have to be a big score. A couple of computers or even one home computer is enough; you just wait until you've saved up lots of simms and then sell them."

If simm chips are easy to obtain, they are even easier to sell. "The buyers are usually illegitimate but there are plenty of legitimate computer shops that will buy them," says Pascal. "The buyers will only sell them on when they have a large quantity that hold enough memory to fit out an entire firm. I know one guy who paid a friend to rip off his own firm and steal the chips so that they could buy them back again a few months later."

Pascal says that simm thieves know just where to get the chips. "The farther away you go from London, the easier it is, because the local police will not be as clued up, and security systems are easier to bypass. I know some guys who did a pre-planned job in York and left with around pounds 20,000 worth of chips on them. They took a taxi costing a few hundred pounds back to London, made the exchange and got their money there and then."

A computer that is chained to a desk offers little protection against simm theft. Moreover, too many firms are ignorant of the fact that the collective memory of office computers is often worth considerably more than other office equipment. Consequently, too many firms are at the mercy of more knowledgeable thieves.

"We need a co-ordinated approach between law enforcement agencies, computer manufacturers and users," says Commander Tom Williamson of the Metropolitan Police.

"Some of the people doing this are 13 or 14 years old and there are more teenagers getting involved all the time," says Pascal. "Many kids who opt out of the school system are attracted to it because it seems like quick money. They want the latest fashions and expensive things to show off to their friends. Some of the money is spent on drugs: cannabis, cocaine or crack. I'd say about 40 per cent of the money earned through simm theft is spent on drugs in some way. These kids can make money even if they don't have many criminal contacts. Many of them may have simm chips but will not know how to find a willing buyer. That's never a real problem because most of the time there will always be one kid who knows someone who can sell them on."

DCI Perry disagrees. Some teenagers are involved, he says, but "Criminals of this age do not represent the majority of thieves; it's the older, more 'professional' criminals who are really responsible. The main draw for the youngsters is that computer chips are relatively easy to steal, but our evidence does not suggest that they are stealing them to fund drug habits. The main problem is that too many companies have outdated security systems."

Some names have been changed