If the asking price is not high, and assuming you know someone back home, my first thought would be to have that person buy the bike. A bird in the hand....


Many years ago I had a friend who had his bike--a Colnago C-40--stolen from a community center. Years after the theft, a guy walked into a LBS trying to sell the bike. Not only was the LBS the place where my friend had bought the bike, it was owned by his cousin. The cousin recognized the bike and told the seller he needed to hold onto to it for a few days to check it out. The seller agreed. The bike owner told his cousin to look in one of the bar ends for his business card. There it was. The bike checked out o.k. so the shop owner simply gave the seller his bare bones asking price rather than deal with the police and possibly face retribution, in the form of shop vandalism or worse, from the seller.