More than 100 stolen mobile phones have been found hidden in tin foil after a man allegedly tried to smuggle them into Italy. 

The stash of 121 phones – including 71 iPhones and 29 Samsung devices – were discovered wrapped in foil packages in a thick blanket in the suspect’s luggage, as he attempted to enter Milan on board a train from Zurich, Switzerland.

In video footage released by police in Italy, some of the packages contained three to four phones stacked together.

Police at customs in Chiasso, Switzerland, discovered the phones had all been lost or stolen during Zurich’s Street Parade dance music festival, which was held in the Swiss city on 10 August.

The suspect – a 40-year-old Romanian national – was arrested at the scene for receiving stolen goods, police said.

Efforts are now being made to return the phones to their rightful owners.

Phone snatching has become a problem across Europe, including in the UK.

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Last week, a man who used an electric motorbike to snatch 24 phones in one morning in London was jailed for two years.

Sonny Stringer, 28, was called “London’s most notorious phone snatcher” by police at the time of his sentencing.

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