You've been living under a rock lately?

Let's say I want to talk to my 'colleagues' about our bomb plot.  The police
will be able to trace our associates through our phone calls - know who
spoke to whom when and for how long.  They'll also know where we were all
the time (cell locations).  Even if we buy new SIMs they can trace the IMEI
of our phones.

If we buy a dozen PAYG mobiles each, use them once and throw them in the
river they can't trace us.  They know where we were but the phones are
clean: they'll know which shop they were bought from, but if we wait long
enough that the CCTV tapes have been wiped then there's no evidence.  Even
if they capture one of the phones they'll know that Suspect A talked to
someone else, but if that phone is clean of fingerprints at the bottom of
the river they have no evidence who it is.

The alternative is use for identity theft.  Let's say I buy identity details
from the local mafia.  How do I exploit it without getting caught?  I can't
use my own phone or broadband because those are traceable.  But I can get an
internet connection through a PAYG phone.  I can then spam/phish/etc
untraceably [1].  Or I make calls to the victim's bank and ask them to
redirect mail to a stooge address (one undergoing building work by some
dodgy mates who have access to the post, for example).  Then I can take out
a credit card in their name.  I either empty the card account with help from
my pal in Russia, or I sign up for a contract mobile.  Then I call Russian
premium rate numbers (or whatever) and run up a huge bill.  Then I walk off
with the cash from the premium rate numbers that's been siphoned into my
Russian bank account.

That doesn't sound like it pays much to be worth the hassle, but repeat a
hundred times and you can bet it will.

[1] I won't be sending the phishing emails myself, but I need some internet
access to inject the virus that sets up the botnet that sends the emails,
and to set up the fake websites.  And I need somewhere (through enough
cutouts) where I collect the bank logins of the victims and to login to and
empty their internet banking.

Theo