Jewellery Thief Who Snatched £250,000 Worth Of Valuables was caught after leaving behind his mobile phone with a selfie

A prolific jewellery thief who snatched nearly a quarter of a million pounds worth of valuables from London shops was caught after leaving behind his mobile phone with a selfie as a screensaver at the scene of a crime. Mechanic Germain Ibrahim Fofana, 27, who blew the money gambling in casinos, received five-and-a-half years imprisonment yesterday for a total of forty-five offences.

Police identified the New York-native, whose father is American and his mother from the Ivory Coast, from the 'selfie' picture on the screensaver of the phone he left at the scene of an £18,000 jewellery theft from Ernest Jones in Kingston-upon-Thames on May 18. Posing as a customer he entered the shop with a female accomplice, who had a young child in a buggy, at 1.45pm, claiming to be looking for an engagement ring. He returned alone thirty minutes later and asked to see the two original engagement rings he viewed and a wedding ring to compare styles, running out of the shop when the assistant handed them over. When police announced the manhunt Detective Sergeant Damion Cumming said: 'In his hurry to get out of the shop, the suspect left his mobile phone on the table alongside his bag. 'While police were on the scene the phone lit up, having received a text message, and a picture of the suspect was saved as the background. 'It was the shop assistant, who served him, who was able to identify the person in the picture.' Police used the information to tie Fofana, who lived in a modest home in Peckham, to a string of similar offences committed all over the capital