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A mum who lost her iPhone in a Coventry pub was astonished to get a message from Apple saying it had turned up - in China.

Clare Kerrigan had given up hope of ever finding the missing phone after she lost it in a pub in Coundon during August.

But on Monday she had a message from Apple saying the phone had been traced to a kindergarten in the city of Shenzhen, in the Guangdong region north of Hong Kong.

Clare, 38, of Max Road, Coundon, said: “Visiting China might be on my bucket list but it’s certainly not somewhere I’ve ever been to.

“It’s really really odd. I have no idea how it happened.

“When it was lost I made sure it was wiped. I had a message saying I better be certain it was gone forever, as opposed to being wedged behind the sofa.

“So I wiped it, got an upgrade and forgot about it.

“It was lost in August. The Cedars pub in Coundon is the last place I had it.

“Normally if I look on the Find My iPhone app I can see all our stuff, usually in our home.

“Now I’ve got another phone popping up 6,000 miles away.”

Bizarrely it’s not unusual for stolen phones to be shipped to China or Africa, as it’s almost impossible to reactivate a stolen handset in the UK.

With Apple’s security software making it easier than ever to make a phone worthless some are sent abroad where they can be reactivated.

Smartphones are so expensive in Asia that a black market in stolen devices is flourishing - with Clare’s phone just one of hundreds that are stolen and shipped to the other side of the world.

Once a phone is switched off it cannot be traced - explaining why Clare couldn’t track the phone until it was turned on in China.

Now she’s able to see where it goes and even if the new owner is playing music.

Clare, who lives with children Elizabeth, six, and Michael, three, said: “That probably explains the delay in it being switched on.

“It might have been kept somewhere before being put on a ship and sent to China.”

It’s believed phones are shipped overseas in suitcases and fruit containers.