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@geeeb
Wouldn't be in for following them - a professional bike thief is going to have much sharper eyes than you, and I don't fancy anyone's chances skulking down side-streets and garage lockups after one. All it takes is for one to clock you, take a detour down a quiet street then turn around brandishing a screwdriver in your face.
After I emailed the cycle task force someone showed up at my door a couple days later who was emphatic that they do recover bikes, sometimes 6 months, a year later. Also the importance of registering your bike's serial number (something I'd failed to do) - this is obvious from a functional level of police time - the difference between searching a description than a single number.
Re. multi grooves: The idea that the police would take back-handers from bike thieves is ridiculous. This is a city with the highest proportion of billionaires in the EU, with masaratis / ferraris speeding up and down mayfair... so I think a bent copper could a little better than that. The problem here is more likely to be that we are talking about bicycles in the first place, not masaratis.
Collectively we're in a far better position to change the culture and market for stolen bikes than do the police's job for them (although that doesn't mean we shouldn't try). The safest option would be to stay in role - you're a civilian so you're well within your rights to take photos of something you're about to buy etc. I'm down with the idea of shaming people but the benefit of the doubt should be given first - at Bricklane there was a little old lady buying a "bike for my daughter" off a patently dodgy guy who was giving it the whole "yeah yeah yeah love, it's really quality and that, has new brakes and everything - yours for £60". She could've been wilfully naive or just genuinely naive, hard to tell.
So how about this:
Campaign of posters dissuading people from funding bike theft
A weekend where it is impossible for anyone to sell a stolen bike in London - mass flyering / photo taking
There are the obvious warning signs that a bike is stolen so print flyers listing these and hand them out to people who are about to buy one. If they still go ahead, take a photo of them and stick it online. This alone would probably attract enough grief, so being smart and sticking to groups would be needed.