Just to make sure, you mean in Japan, right? Because unloading stolen goods are alive and well in countries where cell phone prices are high and average income

Just to make sure, you mean in Japan, right? Because unloading stolen goods are alive and well in countries where cell phone prices are high and average income is low(my personal experience is with the situation in Brazil). Phones are easy to steal, people just start using them and lose focus on their surroundings, thieves can just grab and run, they are easy to conceal and a lot of people want to own an iPhone and can't afford it, there is a market. I know there are ways to brick the device to make it unusable after it is stolen but most people are unaware of how that works.