spingineer

There's hope yet for stolen bikes ... too late for me though ...

A Craigslist ad and some undercover detective work helped police nab three
suspected burglars Tuesday who are accused of stealing two bikes worth a
total of $15,000 from a garage in San Carlos.

Police said the bikes were reported stolen last Saturday morning, when a
resident in the 1900 block of Cedar Street told authorities that he left his
garage door open accidentally and that someone had taken the bikes
overnight. He had closed the garage but didn't notice that when the door
came down it hit a chair and went back up, said police Sgt. Rich Dickerson.

Dickerson said one of the bikes was a custom model made of carbon fiber
materials, worth $10,000. The other bike is valued at $5,000. Also taken was
$180 worth of alcohol.

Police arrested Matthew Storm, 18, of San Jose, and two 15-year-old Redwood
City boys on suspicion of burglary, criminal conspiracy and possession of
stolen property.

"Two of them went into the garage and one was the lookout," Dickerson said.
"They were driving around looking for bikes (to steal)."

After discovering the theft, the owner decided to check Craigslist -- and
spotted his stolen bicycles up for sale.

Dickerson posed as a potential buyer and arranged a meeting at the Caltrain
station in San Carlos to buy the bikes.

"There were several e-mails back and forth in which I asked questions like
anybody would," Dickerson said. "They appeared to be nervous. They didn't
give me a phone number and they told me where to meet them."

Dickerson said several plainclothes officers and detectives were waiting to
arrest Storm when the two met. Storm then led police to the other two
suspects.

"It's real common," Dickerson said of stolen items being posted on
Craigslist. "Our officers will tell people to keep an eye on Craigslist and
eBay."

dapittbull69

That's awesome. I saw another ad on craigslist the other day where a guy bought a stolen bike and was attempting to return it to the original owner for FREE! That guy definitely earned his good karma points for the day.

johnny99

Of course, the flip side to this story is that Craigslist is commonly used to fence stolen property. Always verify the identity of the seller so that if you (the buyer) get caught with the stolen bike, you can point the police to someone else.

mazpr

Did Did Diri

sj_roadie

Good stuff.. there was a thread on a motorcycle forum I frequent where a guy found someone on CL parting out his stolen motorcycle. He was able to identify the parts, but the cops wouldn't help him out. This was in the bay area as well btw. Funny that they were able to help in the case of these bicycles. Funny thing is that these bicycles were worth more than that motorcycle was haha.

sj_roadie

Thought I'd add one more thing.. Am I the only one that's paranoid enough to lock my bikes up even when they are in the closed garage? I live in a nice neighborhood and have a security gate + rolling code garage door, but I still lock my bike to something sturdy just in case. Course by the time someone spends enough time to get through all that security, they probably aren't letting a little cable lock stop them...

uspspro

Mine is in the house.

cantdrv55

Yup, mine's in my home office. Call me paranoid and all I've got is an REI bike. It's a badass bike though.

filtersweep

I have had a bike stolen from my living room and one from a storage locker---- so it doesn't hurt to lock them up indoors.

abrinton

I always keep my bikes locked in the garage. And am still paranoid about it. I would keep them in the house, but can't get my wife to sign off on having them in the guest room

spingineer

I wouldn't call that paranoid. Someone could crack the garage door code, and open the garage door without you knowing it ... or possibly the garage door would open on its own due to some problem with the door opener. You can never be too safe.