A tracking device has led Canberra police to a large haul of allegedly stolen e-bikes and electric scooters.
Police say they have recovered six e-bikes and 15 electric scooters — all suspected of being stolen — from a home in Ngunnawal in Canberra’s north.
Why don’t they just trawl Gumtree and visit everyone who’s selling a scooter or bike without a charger or battery?
“Oh uh, yeah, I legitimately own it, I just… left the charger at a mate’s place. Yeah. Nah, can’t be bothered going to get it, it’s easier if I just sell this $1500 bike for $250 instead.”
Fair bit of work doing that, but it’d be worthwhile doing the occasional check on potentially suspicious listings. If nothing else a known (albeit small) chance of being asked questions might make people less likely to try offloading dodgy stuff.
The hard part is that some people do genuinely lose chargers etc, so you could spend a lot of effort there figuring out truth from lies. For example I know that that Dad’s ebike is legit but would look dodgy if he sold it because he lost the battery lock keys a while back and I had to drill the lock out so he could charge it (I 3d printed a barrel insert so the lock can be used, but it’s clearly not the original lock).
Yeah it would take a bit of effort. For all I know coppers do it already on slow days haha.
The thing is it’s fairly easy to determine if your backstory is legit or not just with a few idle questions. If you rattle off your excuse for a drilled out lock straight off the top of your head and it’s obviously a family home and/or your dad is there looking embarrassed about it, no worries. Then you chuck in a few more questions like, “looks pretty nice, where’d you/your dad get it from? Oh , how much was it? When was that? How’s it go up hills? How fast did you get it up to?” Etc etc.
Normal people will be able to have a convincing answer for all those kinds of mundane but specific questions. People who have nicked it and haven’t used it won’t.
true but if you asked me the same thing I’d literally be able to produce the specs, manual and invoice for the bike.
