Bike thief warning - Hackney/Tower Hamlets

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to put up a warning here for everyone living anywhere around Bethnal Green/London Fields/Hackney/Shoreditch etc. etc.

As I was about to go downstairs to hop on my bike and head to work today I found this note from my neighbour stuck to the wall opposite my front door:

**"Spike - I assume your bike was locked downstairs yesterday!

At 4.55am we saw 3 white males leaving our property on bikes. I went down to check and both bikes including locks were gone

I have called the police.... [etc. etc.]"

**Long story short, both our bikes were stolen.

This may not sound too out of the ordinary, except for the fact that we have an 10ft tall iron gate and our bikes are tucked away, secluded from view from the main road, hidden under a staircase. My neighbour's bike was secured to one of the metal columns supporting the staircase with a good ABUS D-lock, and, here's the real shitter, mine was secured with a Kryptonite Fugheddaboudit chain and shackle. So, to steal our bikes, the three guys firstly found a way to scale the fence (which is not easy), then drill or cut (my girlfriend and my neighbours girlfriend said they heard something that sounded like a power tool) through both the locks, then finally CARRY THE BIKES BACK OVER the 10ft fence (since they couldn''t find the release switch for the gate). All this for a beaten up Fuji Track and a Giant Bowery. The weirdest part is that they took both the locks in their entirety and left the scene of the crime very, very clean. The police have been informed etc. etc. etc. and hopefully something will come of it.

However, the main reason I am posting this is as a warning to people in the area that some very fucking slick thieves with power tools who seem to be staking out bikes to steal (you wouldn't turn up to ours with power tools and know exactly where the bikes are on a whim...) and can apparently cut through a Kryptonite Fugheddaboudit fast enough that people only woke up as they were leaving. I know that a lot of people do not take their bikes all the way in to their flats because in many cases it's really inconvenient (that's why we left ours chained up outside, thinking that good locks and a front gate would be adequate protection), but I'd advice people to maybe beef up their bike security or consider bringing bikes all the way in - the police said that thefts this clean are not common and may suggest a new gang of bike thieves in town.

Being a pedestrian sucks but I'm too skint for a new bike at the moment... would not want anyone else to end up in the same position

Do you live just off Kenmure Street?

No, on Columbia Rd

http://www.yehudamoon.com/index.php?date=2008-02-08

Shit news, Spike, and thanks for the warning. An astonishingly risky way to go about stealing bikes, but you're right, they must have staked it out beforehand. While most bikes are apparently stolen from homes, I don't think I've come a theft report quite like this before.

Hey Spike, sorry to hear that shit bro but i´m sure they won´t be too clever one day and get the fuck kicked out of them.
Anyway i know you said you haven´t the dough at the mo but there´s a cool old guy on saturday mornings and some sundays at the park end of Broadway market that sells all his bikes for 50 quid and their decent old skool jobbies.
Look out for a piece of cardboard with "bike service" written on and thats your man.
He`s there from about 10 till he sells them all. First come basis.
Take care
A

where does he get them?

Hey Spike, sorry to hear that shit bro but i´m sure they won´t be too clever one day and get the fuck kicked out of them.
Anyway i know you said you haven´t the dough at the mo but there´s a cool old guy on saturday mornings and some sundays at the park end of Broadway market that sells all his bikes for 50 quid and their decent old skool jobbies.
Look out for a piece of cardboard with "bike service" written on and thats your man.
He`s there from about 10 till he sells them all. First come basis.

Is he legit?

Hey Spike, sorry to hear that shit bro but i´m sure they won´t be too clever one day and get the fuck kicked out of them.
Anyway i know you said you haven´t the dough at the mo but there´s a cool old guy on saturday mornings and some sundays at the park end of Broadway market that sells all his bikes for 50 quid and their decent old skool jobbies.
Look out for a piece of cardboard with "bike service" written on and thats your man.
He`s there from about 10 till he sells them all. First come basis.
Take care
A

ever thought he's selling stolen bicycles?

A legit one would sell rusty old bikes at £85-130 each, (like the one in Portobello Road who also selling Unipack), bicycles at £50 each regardless of what they are set alarm bell ringing, especially trying to sell them all in one day and bringing in more the next time.

ever thought he's selling stolen bicycles?

Ed, we don't know that yet--and unlike Brick Lane, Broadway Market is a well-run market, so that it would be quite easy to get to the bottom of it in such a case if he wasn't legit. It's always suspicious if someone sells cheap bikes, but let's not jump to conclusions--they could be refurbished old junk for all we know right now.

EDIT: Didn't see your later edit. Yes, there are grounds for suspicion, but not conclusive ones, IMHO.

He´s an old guy that get´s them from boot sales. That´s what he tells me but you could say that about any second hand bike on the streets of london.
He seemed very genuine but like you said who knows
A

yea bad news spike, i dont know what i'd do if someone stole my bike. i think this just shows that you need to have your bike inside your house, even locked commmunal areas are not safe enough.

Sounds like the lot who pinched my Saracen.
They got in through a first floor window with some serious acrobatic skills.
We disturbed them before they could take any more though.

East London is a den of thieves, scoundrels and charlatans.

When are we going to set up our sting ?

i got my GF a new bike a couple of weeks ago have to leave it outside but behind a security fence too. makes me nervous. i'm not totally stupid though, mine lives in the house.

When are we going to set up our sting ?

It is all internet rhetoric. Perhaps you saw the thread last night which 10s of people read, yet no-one bothered to do anything about.

what thread
i only surf in the mornings

Hi, apparently the case involving the theft of Bluequinn's Saracen is still being kept open by the police. I got a good look at one of the thieves at the time, and I just got called to ask if I can go into Bethnal Green police station tomorrow to look at some photos of suspects. I hope I can help catch these feckers, especially if they're the same lot that nicked your bikes Spike.

Brilliant, I hope those fuckers get some sort of punishment even though the bikes stolen from mine were sold on Brick Lane within hours... the police closed my case even though there is a private CCTV camera that would have seen the thieves, apparently the police wanted -me- to find out who has the tapes and bring it to them... considering that I work 7 days a week and haven't got the faintest idea who to approach in the first place that would have been quite difficult, shows how seriously the police take the whole thing

Wow this sound a lot like my case the only different thing is that the thief knew where the release button for the front gate was, and had private CCTV right upon the gate. Columbia Rd is not that far from my place..

Spike thanks so much sharing the news on this; I live in Bethnal Green and like you keep our bikes locked up (pretty damn well) outside. This does make me extremely nervous about leaving them there. Thieves will nick anything that's not nailed down: our neighbour had his baby bunny rabbits nicked from the hutch outside his back door.

Regarding Broadway Market, I don't know where the Old Guy who does the puncture repairs gets his bikes from but I would presume they are not legit. More worryingly, around the past couple of weeks there have been pikeys selling bikes around the same place (the little tramp hang out between London Fields and Broadway Mkt, where the bike crossing is: last Saturday there was a beautiful looking English bike with Scwalbe tyres and a Brooks saddle and the bloke (not the Old Guy, some pikey) wanted £50 for it. The Police were there too and didn't seem to be paying much attention tbh, but then someone had just been shot.... sigh I love living in the East End sometimes!

I have lived in east end my whole life and my family have always had bikes, dirty thieving bastards have always been a problem but there seems to have been a recent surge in thieving, if you can bring your bikes into your house, do it. we need to be placing "lures" bikes locked with booby trapped shit locks.