On Jan. 5th, the victim of a bike theft over the Christmas season called the Saanich Police. The victim, a UVic student, had gone home for Christmas and returned to find his expensive mountain bike had been stolen. The bike had been locked up with a lock, which had somehow been cut or defeated.
The victim decided to be proactive and began looking through various web sites to see if he could find his bike for sale. As luck would have it, the bike owner located what he felt was his bike, advertised on Craig’s List for sale and called the Saanich Police.
The bike owner then began to correspond with the poster of the online add and obtained a photo of the bike. This confirmed in his mind that it was in fact his bike.
Intrepid police officers then opened a fictitious email account and also began to correspond with the poster of the online add. Arrangements were made by the officers to meet the seller in a public place to purchase the bike.
The seller showed up with the bike for what he thought was a sale and instead was arrested. Arrested was a twenty year old Esquimalt male for Possession of Stolen Property. He was released and will attend court in the near future.
Retrieved by officers was a Brodie mountain bike, which was returned to the rightful owner.
Local online sales web sites are routinely monitored by both victims and police in the never ending search for stolen property. Be mindful that when you are purchasing items from an unknown source, that you are not mistakenly purchasing stolen property.
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