Where are all the stolen bikes going?

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 9:50am #1

I'm now at the point that I feel there is very little I can do prevent bikes being stolen. I've had five stolen, including locked bikes taken in a burglary and ulocked kryptonite locked bike taken in city centre.

Moreover, its been on my mind because its like 'surely something can be done' but in practice nothing is being done. Note this is not a rant at the Gardaí, I think they are excellent and were very supportive when the above incidents took place.

One thing for sure that is puzzling is - where are all the stolen bikes going. Nobody seems to know the answer to this. Its guess work.

One can only assume that its a possibility that at least some of the bikes being stolen each year are (I) being sold through the regular used good sites and (ii) through bike shops.

People can draw their own conclusions when browsing around the used goods sites as to whether particular sellers are bonafide - you just never know in a lot of cases.

However there is a very easy potential check......

Why is it that when a bike shop sells a bike, there is absolutely no requirement for them to record the unique serial code of that bike.

Why is that when an online site hosts a bike transaction there is absolutely no obligation on the seller to post the unique serial code of the bike.

It takes ten seconds to write this down; so you can hardly say that its much of an ask.

The bike shops have no problem with the paperwork requirements of the bike to work scheme, so I cant see why this would be an issue.

To give this some context - nobody knows the figure but there are circa 15000 bikes being stolen each year. The replacement value of these is really quite substantial and it causes huge inconvenience and upset for people.

Any thoughts on this?

23-10-2019 9:54am

If nobody buys a bike that is stolen, then no bike will be stolen. Owner has the duty to record serial number, but nobody I know does. I agree seller should show serial number, it's a good idea, but the thief won't, because you shouldn't know.

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 9:57am

Deleted User wrote: »

If nobody buys a bike that is stolen, then no bike will be stolen. Owner has the duty to record serial number, but nobody I know does. I agree seller should show serial number, it's a good idea, but the thief won't, because you shouldn't know.

Completely disagree.

Loads of people record the serial number, but it does no good whatsoever because it only comes into play when bike is identified as being stolen- and how can you identify a bike as being stolen.

You'd be better off buying a raffle ticket and paying for a new bike that way.

Utter Consternation · 23-10-2019 9:57am

Little scrotes are selling them to each other.

23-10-2019 10:04am

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Completely disagree.

Loads of people record the serial number, but it does no good whatsoever because it only comes into play when bike is identified as being stolen- and how can you identify a bike as being stolen.

You'd be better off buying a raffle ticket and paying for a new bike that way.

I don't understand which part you disagree.

Do you mean there is no data bases of stolen numbers? I understand that, so maybe it would not be difficult to make one?

caff · 23-10-2019 10:07am

They don't sell many of them in Ireland. Throw them I to shipping containers and export them for sale abroad.

https://garda-post.com/gardai-raid-theft-to-order-stolen-bike-operation-in-limerick/

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 10:13am

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't understand which part you disagree.

Do you mean there is no data bases of stolen numbers? I understand that, so maybe it would not be difficult to make one?

No.

What I mean more is -

If a seller is obliged to record the serial number of a bike as part of the advertisement and / or sale, then it puts pressure on them if they are selling stolen bikes. it makes it much more difficulty to sell a stolen bike.

At the moment, it is very easy to sell a stolen bike.

I know some of them are being shipped out - but not 10'000 of them....its some of them not all of them.

MrMusician18 · 23-10-2019 10:20am

Tombo2001 wrote: »

No.

What I mean more is -

If a seller is obliged to record the serial number of a bike as part of the advertisement and / or sale, then it puts pressure on them if they are selling stolen bikes. it makes it much more difficulty to sell a stolen bike.

At the moment, it is very easy to sell a stolen bike.

I know some of them are being shipped out - but not 10'000 of them....its some of them not all of them.

The professional gangs are exporting them as there is too much of a risk to their operation to sell locally. That's the vast majority of stolen bikes.

It's only the stupid opportunists that sell them here, and the even sillier that try and sell online.

Azizur Rahman · 23-10-2019 10:23am

A lot of Dublin city centre bike thefts are usually just sold on. Someone has a bike stolen, they don't see the point buying brand new incase it happens again, so go to a second hand seller and hey presto the cycle repeats.

magicbastarder · 23-10-2019 10:23am

given that canyon can track bikes - as per the other thread where a user was notificed by them of his bike being recovered - i wonder are they able to provide figures on where bikes are reported stolen vs. where they're recovered.
you'd think they'd be publicising such info, might sway some people towards canyon if they knew of that benefit.

gman2k · 23-10-2019 10:23am

My theory is that high end bikes are stripped, the parts exported and sold online.
There are a few sellers I used to keep an eye on Adverts, and I cannot understand how they are able to keep churning out high end parts for sale.
Especially if they are living in Dublin city centre and they are unlikely to have a large area to store all these bikes they seem to own, and they don't work in bike shops.

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 10:24am

MrMusician18 wrote: »

The professional gangs are exporting them as there is too much of a risk to their operation to sell locally. That's the vast majority of stolen bikes.

It's only the stupid opportunists that sell them here, and the even sillier that try and sell online.

I am not saying you are wrong....and for sure this happens.

But what evidence is there to say this is a major outlet for bike theft.

If the figure is circa 15'000 for total bike theft - are you saying that 8-10'000 of these are being shipped out?

That's a lot of containers.

How can you say that more stolen bikes end up in containers than say in the stock rooms of second hand bike shops.

Not being smart, but its something you hear - they are being shipped out of the country.

One or two containers here and there is not the same as dozens of containers leaving every year.

caff · 23-10-2019 10:26am

MrMusician18 wrote: »

The professional gangs are exporting them as there is too much of a risk to their operation to sell locally. That's the vast majority of stolen bikes.

It's only the stupid opportunists that sell them here, and the even sillier that try and sell online.

The Dutch are trying to get some kind of cross EU bike registration in place as its a massive problem there with gangs stealing bikes and shipping them out.

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 10:27am

gman2k wrote: »

My theory is that high end bikes are stripped, the parts exported and sold online.
There are a few sellers I used to keep an eye on Adverts, and I cannot understand how they are able to keep churning out high end parts for sale.
Especially if they are living in Dublin city centre and they are unlikely to have a large area to store all these bikes they seem to own, and they don't work in bike shops.

well exactly.

it really is quite remarkable.

always interesting to search terms like 'good bike' or 'pushbike' - no product detail given.

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 10:28am

magicbastarder wrote: »

given that canyon can track bikes - as per the other thread where a user was notificed by them of his bike being recovered - i wonder are they able to provide figures on where bikes are reported stolen vs. where they're recovered.
you'd think they'd be publicising such info, might sway some people towards canyon if they knew of that benefit.

Is that through a GPS?

23-10-2019 10:33am

gman2k wrote: »

My theory is that high end bikes are stripped, the parts exported and sold online.
There are a few sellers I used to keep an eye on Adverts, and I cannot understand how they are able to keep churning out high end parts for sale.
Especially if they are living in Dublin city centre and they are unlikely to have a large area to store all these bikes they seem to own, and they don't work in bike shops.

That always worries me. If you look through adverts.ie, you can see some sellers that always have full used groupsets for sale, wheels etc. If it was a seller that sold other items as well, i could understand it, but some seem to have a full blown used bike parts business in operation.

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 10:34am

Aegir wrote: »

That always worries me. If you look through adverts.ie, you can see some sellers that always have full used groupsets for sale, wheels etc. If it was a seller that sold other items as well, i could understand it, but some seem to have a full blown used bike parts business in operation.

and these are never bike shops.

Utter Consternation · 23-10-2019 10:38am

caff wrote: »

They don't sell many of them in Ireland. Throw them I to shipping containers and export them for sale abroad.

https://garda-post.com/gardai-raid-theft-to-order-stolen-bike-operation-in-limerick/

Where are they shipped off to i wonder? I always surmised it was not organised crime that bothered with it.

magicbastarder · 23-10-2019 10:39am

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Is that through a GPS?

IIRC, the bike was stolen, the gardai recovered it and sent the serial number to canyon to request what details they had on it. canyon contacted the owner to say the gardai had the bike, but because of data protection issues they could not give the gardai the info requested.

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 10:47am

magicbastarder wrote: »

IIRC, the bike was stolen, the gardai recovered it and sent the serial number to canyon to request what details they had on it. canyon contacted the owner to say the gardai had the bike, but because of data protection issues they could not give the gardai the info requested.

OK understood.

So the problem I see here is that for every 100 bikes that are stolen, only probably 5 will be recovered by the gardai …..lets say. I cant imagine its much more than that.

So on the 5% chance that the gardai retrieve your bike, then yes the serial number comes into play.

in the meantime, what happens to the other part - the 95% that the gardai don't recover. That's the bit I'm interested in. How can we make it harder to sell these - because ultimately what people are stealing its not bikes - its "near cash".....they steal anything that is easy to exchange for cash. And it just so happens that bikes are extremely easy to exchange for cash. That's the bit that needs to change.

magicbastarder · 23-10-2019 11:01am

i was at a dublin cycling campaign meeting a year or two back, where gardai were there to talk about bike theft. only 11% of bike theft victims were able to provide the serial number of the bike.

caff · 23-10-2019 11:05am

Utter Consternation wrote: »

Where are they shipped off to i wonder? I always surmised it was not organised crime that bothered with it.

Well one gang was shipping to Morocco https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/bike-brand-tracks-one-customers-stolen-bike-ends-exposing-international-368537

irlirishkev · 23-10-2019 12:30pm

You know the scrotey little maggots who pull wheelies against oncoming traffic and at pedestrians on footpaths.. I often wonder why so many of their bikes are waaaay too big for them..

Weepsie · 23-10-2019 12:34pm

There was a meeting in Glasnevin last night about bike theft called by a local Green Counciller. Not sure how it went as I was in work

lissard · 23-10-2019 12:53pm

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.

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 1:16pm

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.

Thats really interesting on a number of fronts.

(I) that it took so long to hit Adverts.
(II) a lot of people look in the for sale sections, or in the sold section.

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.

Other point - this notion that 'the gardai are doing nothing' really annoys me.

I do think the spotlight needs to be elsewhere - particular on the people who act as distributors of bikes.

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.

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 1:22pm

Some interesting stats.

There are currently 6873 bikes for sale on adverts (under the bikes section, more in toy section etc).

There are 35000 'Withdrawn' bikes.

There are 44000 sold bikes.

That is some amount of volume.

machaseh · 23-10-2019 1:23pm

My solution is: I use old, uncomfortable second hand bikes.

I'd love to get a more expensive, better racing bike. But in my apartment I just don't have the room to store it inside, and if I store it outside it is 100% likely to get stolen or at least for the most important parts to get stolen.

Bot1 · 23-10-2019 1:36pm

Eastern Europe I was told by a Guard

Tombo2001 · 23-10-2019 2:10pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

i was at a dublin cycling campaign meeting a year or two back, where gardai were there to talk about bike theft. only 11% of bike theft victims were able to provide the serial number of the bike.

But again I would almost say why does that matter.

The only way it matters is if the bike is identified by features other than the serial code, and as such is identified as being stolen.

I have the serial codes on the all my bikes that were stolen. They aren't a damn bit of use to me except on the off-chance I find it for sale somewhere. And what am I supposed to do?

If on the other hand bike shops had to identify the serial code, if sellers on the used good sites had to display the serial codes when selling - then it would be a lot more evident if said bike was a my one.

I do think there is a lot of people out there that - while they wouldn't steal a bike themselves, they'll quite happily buy a bike at a good price with no questions asked.

machaseh · 23-10-2019 2:10pm

I havent had it in Dublin yet, but in the Netherlands it was common that there would be a junkie at the train station late at night, selling (clearly stolen) bikes for 20 quid.

Once, in fact, I actually stole my own bike back. Some junkie had nicked my bike from the station, when I walked home (without me bike) I suddenly saw a bike parked somewhere that looked familiar. It was my own, but it was completely destroyed by the junkie sadly.

Altheus · 23-10-2019 2:13pm

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 · 23-10-2019 2:14pm

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 · 23-10-2019 2:16pm

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 · 23-10-2019 2:28pm

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

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

Anjunadeep · 23-10-2019 2:36pm

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 · 23-10-2019 2:40pm

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 · 23-10-2019 3:09pm

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 · 23-10-2019 3:33pm

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 · 23-10-2019 3:34pm

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 · 23-10-2019 3:51pm

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 · 23-10-2019 3:54pm

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 · 23-10-2019 4:31pm

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.

23-10-2019 4:38pm

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.

23-10-2019 6:08pm

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 · 23-10-2019 6:35pm

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 · 23-10-2019 7:22pm

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 · 24-10-2019 7:42am

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 · 24-10-2019 8:51am

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 · 24-10-2019 8:59am

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 · 24-10-2019 9:01am

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.

Where are all the stolen bikes going?

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