Where are all the stolen bikes going?

Altheus

I had my bike returned by someone who saw it on Twitter. His story was he got it through 'a friend at football'. Every part of the bike had been stripped (bottle mounts, Wahoo, cadence etc). Bike was cleaned and di2 was reset. The gentleman who contacted me via FB was able to verify me as the owner through some things like scuffing and helicopter tapes.

I think I was followed home when it was stolen to be honest, there's definitely a group targeting high value bike in Dublin 7, and finding ways to sell them on, not via DoneDeal or Adverts, but through friends of friends, social clubs etc.

Altheus

In my case, I had a huge number of photographs of the bike too, little details, and big details, loads of me on the bike. This helped me in my conversations with insurance company and the Gardai.

Tombo2001

I have a theory that there are circa 30000 new students coming into Dublin every year from both Ireland and from internationally, loads of them have bikes and I'd imagine there is some sort of black market there.

Having said, you cant do much where something is being sold on the street.

Where they are being sold through regulated entities or forums however, I think its simply not acceptable and more needs to be done.

Tombo2001

Just spotted this - might be time for me to become an activist....

https://www.thejournal.ie/mandatory-registration-bicycles-ireland-4606343-Apr2019/

Anjunadeep

I was thinking about this issue during the week.. I wonder would a national mandatory bicycle registration scheme reduce the sale of stolen bikes in the second hand market. A potential buyer could check the register using the serial number to see if the seller matches the currently registered ownership.
The bicycle shops would be responsible for entering new ownership details into the online register at the point of sale.
Second hand private sales could be updated in the register by the currently registered owner and new buyer going to a Gardai station and completing a form.

Yes it would require Gardai resources and buyin from the bicycle shops.. But I suppose its in the interest of the bicycle shops for this issue to be addressed. I recall reading somewhere that 1 in 6 people who had a bike stolen don't replace it. The Gardai could charge a few quid for second hand registrations..
With the money people are spending on bikes these days, paying a fiver to have it registered isnt much really..

Del2005

lissard wrote: »

I posted this on the stolen bikes thread about a year ago. It answers some of the questions the OP raised.

My bike which was stolen in in May 2018 popped up when I did a search on Adverts In October 2018. I bookmarked the page, headed down to the Garda station and showed them the seller profile. To put it mildly it was suspicious - nearly 100 bikes in the the withdrawn state and 6 current ads. Anyhow, to cut a long story short the Gardai came through for me. They set up a sting - made an offer on the bike and arrested the guy for possession of stolen property when he turned up with my bike. Having the serial number and a service history of every component on the bike left them in no doubt that it was mine. BTW they didn't think that this guy was the one that carried out the original theft.

My takeaways from all this:
1. If it looks too good to be true on Donedeal/Adverts - it's probably stolen. There are a large number of sellers that fall into this category.
2. Keep your serial number handy.
3. Having good service records makes it so much easier for the Gardai to act.
4. In the months after the bike is nicked do a periodic scan of the websites. In my case the bike was stolen in May and posted for sale in September.
5. Once you give the Gardai the tools to trap the thieves they're more than happy to do so.

What happened the culprit? I'd a scumbag caught in the process of trying to steal my car. 2 court days later, the wait in the children's court was an eye opener for the attitude of criminals! , and he walked away scot free. That's the problem in this country not the Gardai or bike shops etc, there's no deterrent to commting crime in this country if you already have a record.

Tombo2001

Del2005 wrote: »

What happened the culprit? I'd a scumbag caught in the process of trying to steal my car. 2 court days later, the wait in the children's court was an eye opener for the attitude of criminals! , and he walked away scot free. That's the problem in this country not the Gardai or bike shops etc, there's no deterrent to commting crime in this country if you already have a record.

Well i'd imagine it would be a major issue for a bike shop or used goods website if they were to be done for handling stolen goods.

Del2005

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Well i'd imagine it would be a major issue for a bike shop or used goods website if they were to be done for handling stolen goods.

The website does not handle anything, the shop selling stolen bikes knows what they are selling.

Tombo2001

Del2005 wrote: »

The website does not handle anything, the shop selling stolen bikes knows what they are selling.

Fair enough, but its facilitating a transaction so it must have some responsibilities?

lissard

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Thats really interesting on a number of fronts.


More items in Adverts seem to be 'Withdrawn' than 'Sold' even after a transaction appears to have been conducted (i.e. offer made, pms sent etc) - so always look in the Withdrawn section also.

I was wondering about that myself and came to a very simple conclusion. When you go to 'sold' on a site like donedeal or adverts you have to pay a fee. The bike thieves keep their costs low by never concluding a deal. They work on a lean model - keep the procurement cost low by stealing the bike and keep the transaction cost low by going to withdrawn. Ryanair would be proud of them ;-).

Tombo2001

lissard wrote: »

I was wondering about that myself and came to a very simple conclusion. When you go to 'sold' on a site like donedeal or adverts you have to pay a fee. The bike thieves keep their costs low by never concluding a deal. They work on a lean model - keep the procurement cost low by stealing the bike and keep the transaction cost low by going to withdrawn. Ryanair would be proud of them ;-).

I also think its just less obvious. You don't think of looking in the Withdrawn section. There is no record of a transaction taking place.

Its also very notable how many sellers describe the bike in generic terms; which makes its very difficult to look for using search times "nice bike for sale, good condition". That sort of thing.

smacl

Tombo2001 wrote: »

As mentioned - if Adverts/ DoneDeal made it a requirement to post a serial code for any bike being advertised, if bike shops had to record the serial code for every bike they sold - I think we would see a very sharp drop in bike thefts.

Also worth considering that Adverts/DoneDeal/Ebay/Gumtree and similar sites, who's business model is to provide the market place, are benefiting from the sale of stolen goods here should share part of the responsibility. My opinion is that where they make no effort to do so, and goods are either improbably priced and sold by people who have a long history of similar transactions they should be considered accomplice to reselling stolen property.

I contacted adverts in the past to report a bike that was demonstrably and provably stolen and got a boilerplate 'not our responsibility' reply back from them.

Altheus

Altheus wrote: »

I had my bike returned by someone who saw it on Twitter. His story was he got it through 'a friend at football'. Every part of the bike had been stripped (bottle mounts, Wahoo, cadence etc). Bike was cleaned and di2 was reset. The gentleman who contacted me via FB was able to verify me as the owner through some things like scuffing and helicopter tapes.

I think I was followed home when it was stolen to be honest, there's definitely a group targeting high value bike in Dublin 7, and finding ways to sell them on, not via DoneDeal or Adverts, but through friends of friends, social clubs etc.

There was a post on here some time back about a guy who had a really top end bike stolen from his home. They broke in to his conservatory I believe.

He thinks they looked at his Strava profile (with picture of said bike) and were able to work out from his routes where he lived.

Read on another cycling forum in July about a Dutch guy who claimed he saw his stolen Trek madone on the romanian website olx. His saddlebag, garmin holder and rear light were still on it.
The seller was so brazen he had put 11 bikes for sale on the same day.

Altheus

Aegir wrote: »

He thinks they looked at his Strava profile (with picture of said bike) and were able to work out from his routes where he lived.

Yeah - I've hidden my home, or sometimes I just turn it on and off some distance away. I've also invested in Ring cameras - just in case!

Kaisr Sose

I got a photo of a guy cycling away on a bike he had just stolen a from a neighbour. (he looked suspicious and I followed him when I noticed the cut lock where he was messing about). I rang AGS, gave a description and said I had a photo. They said they would call up for it. They never contacted me. I gave the photo to the neighbour, who called Garda to report the theft. I arranged for cctv of the theft to be saved by caretaker. The Garda called over to neighbour to report the theft. My neighbour says there is a photo of thief and cctv of the theft. Garda said they would let her know if they needed it. Never looked at photo and left.

A few days prior to this a van arrived about 3 or 4am. Two guys got out with high vis jackets and stole 5 or 6 bikes. Again there was cctv but at the time I was getting cctv of single theft incident, the caretaker said the Garda had not called for it. I would say the bulk theft was for export. It seemed very well rehearsed and they knew where the decent bikes were in a large underground car park.

In Dundrum, it would be a stretch to say they are interested in bike theft. Bulk bike theft in the middle of the night is organised crime.

Tombo2001

Kaisr Sose wrote: »

I got a photo of a guy cycling away on a bike he had just stolen a from a neighbour. (he looked suspicious and I followed him when I noticed the cut lock where he was messing about). I rang AGS, gave a description and said I had a photo. They said they would call up for it. They never contacted me. I gave the photo to the neighbour, who called Garda to report the theft. I arranged for cctv of the theft to be saved by caretaker. The Garda called over to neighbour to report the theft. My neighbour says there is a photo of thief and cctv of the theft. Garda said they would let her know if they needed it. Never looked at photo and left.

A few days prior to this a van arrived about 3 or 4am. Two guys got out with high vis jackets and stole 5 or 6 bikes. Again there was cctv but at the time I was getting cctv of single theft incident, the caretaker said the Garda had not called for it. I would say the bulk theft was for export. It seemed very well rehearsed and they knew where the decent bikes were in a large underground car park.

In Dundrum, it would be a stretch to say they are interested in bike theft. Bulk bike theft in the middle of the night is organised crime.

Regarding the immediate incident: Not being smart but what can the Gardaí do with CCTV.

They have a cut lock, grainy image of some dude they cant identify and a stolen item that they cant trace.

What exactly should they be doing here? To pursue a bike worth what - 300 euro ? 500 euro?

What is your ask of the Gardaí in this situation? Because I don't see any way they conduct an investigation based on the information presented.

Don't mean to be a downer but I am just seeing in my view from a realist position.

Regarding the van - all I can say is when I had a bike stolen from the garage, they came around and spent an hour at the house talking about it; so it would be inconsistent to say they least if they didn't follow up on this.

My wider position here is that there is very little the gardai can do about bike crime, therefore the gardai do very little about bike crime apart from offer sympathy. And bike owners would be wrong to (I) expect more and (ii) blame the gardai for this. Which goes back to the bigger point here - who is robbing bikes, where are the bikes going. With the ultimate point being - the most effective way to change this situation is to make it much more difficult to sell stolen bikes.

smacl

Tombo2001 wrote: »

What exactly should they be doing here? To pursue a bike worth what - 300 euro ? 500 euro?

I don't think the value of the bike is the issue here so much as the lack of deterrent for a repeat offence. The Gardaí should be providing a strong response in order to add substantial risk to a crime that currently has rewards that outweigh the attendant risks. The question here is whether the most effective use of their resources is to focus on the market that sells stolen goods or on the act of theft?

NasserShammaz

Kaisr Sose wrote: »

I got a photo of a guy cycling away on a bike he had just stolen a from a neighbour. (he looked suspicious and I followed him when I noticed the cut lock where he was messing about). I rang AGS, gave a description and said I had a photo. They said they would call up for it. They never contacted me. I gave the photo to the neighbour, who called Garda to report the theft. I arranged for cctv of the theft to be saved by caretaker. The Garda called over to neighbour to report the theft. My neighbour says there is a photo of thief and cctv of the theft. Garda said they would let her know if they needed it. Never looked at photo and left.

A few days prior to this a van arrived about 3 or 4am. Two guys got out with high vis jackets and stole 5 or 6 bikes. Again there was cctv but at the time I was getting cctv of single theft incident, the caretaker said the Garda had not called for it. I would say the bulk theft was for export. It seemed very well rehearsed and they knew where the decent bikes were in a large underground car park.

In Dundrum, it would be a stretch to say they are interested in bike theft. Bulk bike theft in the middle of the night is organised crime.

Good luck, still waiting 4 year's later for them to collect USB stick with clear images of the scum that were stealing bikes from our apartment building and we are in the city centre.

Azizur Rahman

smacl wrote: »

The Gardaí should be providing a strong response in order to add substantial risk to a crime that currently has rewards that outweigh the attendant risks.

Gardaí just arrest and bring the low lifes to court. It's on the judiciary to impose a penalty.

But when it comes to organised crime, CAB can have a major impact on the people moving the stolen goods.

magicbastarder

smacl wrote: »

The question here is whether the most effective use of their resources is to focus on the market that sells stolen goods or on the act of theft?

replace 'drugs' with 'bikes'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7M71wmwWRo

Azizur Rahman

NasserShammaz wrote: »

Good luck, still waiting 4 year's later for them to collect USB stick with clear images of the scum that were stealing bikes from our apartment building and we are in the city centre.

You should write to your local Superintendent about that. Talk about the ball being dropped by AGS.

Tombo2001

smacl wrote: »

I don't think the value of the bike is the issue here so much as the lack of deterrent for a repeat offence. The Gardaí should be providing a strong response in order to add substantial risk to a crime that currently has rewards that outweigh the attendant risks. The question here is whether the most effective use of their resources is to focus on the market that sells stolen goods or on the act of theft?

That's all hypothetical and wishful thinking.

They cant catch the guy based on information provided. This is a fact.

So what to you actually expect them to do?

Here's a photo of a bike and a serial number, and a photo or footage of someone you cant identifiy - what do you expect the gardai to be able to do with this?

Lets separate out what we would like them to do - and focus on what they can actually do here for a moment.

Del2005

smacl wrote: »

I don't think the value of the bike is the issue here so much as the lack of deterrent for a repeat offence. The Gardaí should be providing a strong response in order to add substantial risk to a crime that currently has rewards that outweigh the attendant risks. The question here is whether the most effective use of their resources is to focus on the market that sells stolen goods or on the act of theft?

I guarantee that if you ask a Garda off the record who stole the bike they'd have a good idea who it was, most crime is committed by a tiny minority. There problem is catching them with enough evidence and then if they do bring them to court they walk away with a slap on the wrist.

The courts need to start dealing with the criminals* but the legal profession makes a fortune from these cases and judges come from the same profession.

*I'm not saying jail, but the current system definitely isn't working for the public.

machaseh

Once a criminal has a bad enough record, they basically have nothing to lose left. Then getting some time for stealing a bike doesn't matter anymore.

Paddigol

Del2005 wrote: »

I guarantee that if you ask a Garda off the record who stole the bike they'd have a good idea who it was, most crime is committed by a tiny minority. There problem is catching them with enough evidence and then if they do bring them to court they walk away with a slap on the wrist.

The courts need to start dealing with the criminals* but the legal profession makes a fortune from these cases and judges come from the same profession.

*I'm not saying jail, but the current system definitely isn't working for the public.

The legal profession makes f**k all from minor offences like bike theft. Free legal aid pays peanuts in those cases. Your average painter and decorator probably makes more money per hour. And its not for the legal profession or judges to decide what system to implement. That's for the legislators.

Maybe you have some inside knowledge regarding the gardai and perpetrators of bike theft, but you're way off the mark with your comments regarding 'the legal system'.

Bike theft is an absolute kick in the balls and its hugely frustrating to see it continue year on year. But it does nobody any favours to point of pie-in-the-sky solutions such as its all the legal profession's fault.

ifElseThen

Similar to the stolen UK tools coming here and stolen Irish tools going to the UK, I would imagine.

https://www.herald.ie/news/courts/owner-spotted-stolen-bike-for-sale-on-net-28848296.html

This was my bike. Got it back after I posted an ad on donedeal.
Also tracked him down and told him he had 2 hours to get the bike back or I would go to town on him.
He rang the Guards on me, and the Garda rang me to tell me to not harass him.
Never saw the €250 compensation.
The bike was stolen again a couple of months later.

Kaisr Sose

Tombo2001 wrote: »

That's all hypothetical and wishful thinking.

They cant catch the guy based on information provided. This is a fact.

So what to you actually expect them to do?

Here's a photo of a bike and a serial number, and a photo or footage of someone you cant identifiy - what do you expect the gardai to be able to do with this?

Lets separate out what we would like them to do - and focus on what they can actually do here for a moment.

The cctv was clear and my photo was clear. If the garda call popular stores on a daily basis to arrest shoplifter, can they not also put some effort into bike theft?

The courts have a significant role to play and I don't think they are supporting AGS by repeated suspended sentences for this sort of crime. It's petty stuff but still an offence.

Tombo2001

Kaisr Sose wrote: »

The cctv was clear and my photo was clear. If the garda call popular stores on a daily basis to arrest shoplifter, can they not also put some effort into bike theft?

The courts have a significant role to play and I don't think they are supporting AGS by repeated suspended sentences for this sort of crime. It's petty stuff but still an offence.

And what.

The gardai arrive 15 minutes later. They get photo. Who is it. We don't know. Where are they. We don't know. Lets drive around for the next hour on the off chance we catch them.

Stores have security assistants that can detain shoplifters; not the same thing.

I still maintain there is absolutely damn all the gardai can do and people need to adjust their expectations.

The courts is another issue - but I don't see it as something that can be influenced.

For me - cyclists need to push to make it harder to sell stolen bikes - by pressuring the legit business that sell stolen bikes and/ or facilitate sales of stolen bikes.

The Rugby and Gaelic guys are always banging on about the controllables - this is the only part of the chain cyclists can influence IMHO....

Tombo2001

ifElseThen wrote: »

Similar to the stolen UK tools coming here and stolen Irish tools going to the UK, I would imagine.

https://www.herald.ie/news/courts/owner-spotted-stolen-bike-for-sale-on-net-28848296.html

This was my bike. Got it back after I posted an ad on donedeal.
Also tracked him down and told him he had 2 hours to get the bike back or I would go to town on him.
He rang the Guards on me, and the Garda rang me to tell me to not harass him.
Never saw the €250 compensation.
The bike was stolen again a couple of months later.

That's a good one.

Saw a bunch of sold ads yesterday that seemed very similar - 'Nice Bike for Sale' when actually its a 2018 version of a well known brand and well know model, retailing for 700 or 800 euro, and seller has it on sale for 100 euro because they don't even know what they have.

Anyway - lets hope he knuckles down for the leaving cert!!:)