One in two stolen bikes ends up on black market

Stolen bicycles on sale on Internet auction sites

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By Ville Seuri
     
      I would like to buy a second-hand bicycle.
      First I place an advertisement on one of the online exchange & mart sites.
      After receiving a large number of contacts, I begin to suspect whether some sellers are really offering for sale their own bikes or somebody else's stolen property.
     
The annual number of bicycles lost, stolen, or strayed in Finland is more than 10,000.
      In 2009, a total of 2,320 bike thefts had been recorded by the Helsinki Police Department by the end of August alone.
      Up in Oulu, allegedly the most lively biking city in Finland, the number of annual bike thefts is around 2,000.
      In Helsinki, the number of bike thefts has slightly increased over the past few years. In 2008, a total of 2,081 thefts were recorded over the period from January through August, while the corresponding figure for 2007 was 2,217.
      Many thieves snatch a bicycle on impulse, or as a "get me home" device, but most stolen two-wheelers are to be sold on the second-hand market.
     
”A significant part of the stolen bicycles are expensive mountain bikes. They are not snatched on one’s weary way home from a restaurant”, says Arto Karnaranta, assistant commissioner of the Oulu Police.
      ”My very rough estimate would be that half of all bike thefts are linked with professional crime”, Karnaranta notes.
     
Sometimes the thief sells the stolen bike himself or herself, but most often it ends up in the warehouse of a middleman. Frequently a bike is traded for drugs.
      The middleman usually has many bicycles in the warehouse, and bike parts can be swapped from one bike to another.
      The bikes are possibly then repainted and their serial numbers are filed away in order that the machines would be more difficult to recognise when they are sold on the black market.
     
Convenient market places are for example the online auction-houses Keltainen Pörssi and Huuto.net.
      ”I do not believe that thieves themselves advertise on these forums, but they do look for advertisements from potential buyers”, says Detective Inspector Juha Laaksonen from the Helsinki Police.
      Sometimes stolen bicycles are also taken abroad. In June, a man was caught by the police at Helsinki’s West Harbour trying to take two bikes to Estonia. It turned out that one of the bikes had been stolen in Espoo a few days earlier.
     
However, suspicious bicycles can also be spotted on the online market places, admits product manager Toni Ruuska from Huuto.net, saying that the online auction site is trying to screen off stolen goods with the help of the police and by their system of buyer and seller feedback.
      ”We receive nearly 100,000 new advertisements per day, which is why it is impossible to screen all of them”, Ruuska notes.
      When buying a second-hand bicycle, it is advisable to be rather too curious than cautious about what you ask, the police stress.
      If a person buys a bike the origin of which is not known, the buyer could be found guilty of receiving stolen goods.
      "Ignorance is no waiver of responsibility, because a court could find that the buyer should have applied due diligence and that he or she should have known the bike was stolen if only they had thought about itproperly, says Arto Karnaranta.
     
     
FACTFILE: How to find out the legal status of products on sale?
     
     
The origin of a bicycle can be established by asking a few simple questions.
     
If the bike is new, ask for a receipt or a warranty certificate. In any case, ask when and from whic shop the seller has got the bike.
     
Ask whether the bike has an integrated lock and whether the keys for it are available.
     
Ask questions about the technical features of the bicycle that is up for sale. If the seller cannot answer, something may be amiss with the deal.
     
If you go to see the bike, look at the underside of the crank shell for the serial number. If you spot any traces indicating that the serial number has been filed away, there is a strong possibility that the bike in question has been stolen.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 3.10.2009

More on this subject:
 For Sale: A Jopo bike, keys gone missing

Previously in HS International Edition:
  BACKGROUND: Stolen goods among the items sold over the Net (25.4.2006)
  Net sleuths expose dealer in stolen goods (25.4.2006)

VILLE SEURI / Helsingin Sanomat
ville.seuri@hs.fi