The investigation of the daily revealed that the theft happened at Metro Stalingrad, in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. A video uploaded on their site shows an individual with a blurred face stealing the bicycle by cutting the lock “in 13 seconds” before leaving with his loot.
A female voice then remarks: “My bike has just been get stolen, but the good news is that it is equipped with a GPS tracker that allows us to follow its movements.”
The Ile-de-France tabloid tracked the stolen bike. According to the daily, the journalist chose the store where the bike was purchased in the “Bermuda Triangle of Stolen Bikes”. This is the name given to the area towards the Ourcq Canal at the center of the triangle formed by the Stalingrad, Jaurès and Riquet metro stations, in the capital.
“I had four stolen in a year,” said a resident of the same district in Paris.
The GPS tracker attached to the bike has the appearance of a lamp and the thief happened to be a neighborhood crack addict, according to the Parisian journalist. The Jardins d’Eole is a prime area for crack addicts and a dozen bicycles were found there.
When the daily followed the GPS data, it showed how the bike passed from Stalingrad to Marx Dormoy, through Porte de Clignancourt and then stopped there for “about ten minutes”.
It was eventually found in Clichy, in a storage room. Labels inside the storage unit indicated that the objects were destined for Morocco. The owner of the storage surprised the journalist by immediately agreeing to return her bike to her. When he opened his truck however, there were about fifteen bikes ready to be shipped to Africa.
One comment
It used to be (probably still is) that most of the luxury cars stolen in western Europe ended up in Albania and certain other nearby countries. There seems to be less of a market for cars in Morocco, but most people there can afford bicycles, and they probably get a good deal on these stolen ones.
By submitting a comment you grant Free West Media a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate and irrelevant comments will be removed at an admin’s discretion. Your email is used for verification purposes only, it will never be shared.