Stolen Bikes Laundering

Apologies if it’s BDTD but I was thinking about this en route to my first aid course.

I thought, well we can all identify some ******* selling a stolen beauty but the real question must be …at some point an ‘honest’ cyclist has to knowingly buy/sell-on or in other words ‘launder’ the parts….surely this has to be the case or else the theive’s market would be reduced to their own kind/circle who, by action, have no money/fitness/want/need/passion to practice the arts?

If only it were like this, the reality is that stuff mostly gets stolen by smack heads to sell on for £50 to feed the habit. Even the poshest mtb’s are unlikely to be sold for much. I have heard of cases of very expensive bikes being stolen by more motivated thieves but I feel sure that the vast majority of nickings are due to desperate drug addicts.

I say legalise it, give it free on the NHS. Buy it from the Afghans. Cut crime by an enormous amount overnight, and the war in Afghanistan by giving the Afghans a financial interest in us.

Some are more obvious than others

http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/specialized-allez-brand-new-for-170-or-swap-for-sumthing/92472162

at some point an ‘honest’ cyclist has to knowingly buy/sell-on or in other words ‘launder’ the parts

Not necessarily true.
Nick bike
Strip it
Sell parts on eBay

Nobody knows where they come from….

Cut crime by an enormous amount overnight

Legalising murder would have the same effect.

So would legalizing any crime, so what? Are you trying to make some kind of slippery slope argument?

Or is it morally objectionable to you for people to ruin their lives taking substances.

PP, I hear what you say but one can easily spot a dodgy ebayer’s profile or history surely…. SC heckler brand new £1.50… # of ebay transactions 1. I need to see a stack of ebay quality replies and sales etc b4 I spend larger amounts of cash. Also, setting…leaning against a scabby street wall or a nice well-kept garden. All subjective, but the clues stack up??

Look how mamy ‘dodgy bike on ebay’ or ‘anyone lost a…..’ threads on here? I’m sure at some point somebody who should know better is turning a blind eye.

NO, let’s not go OT peeps 🙂 I was just presenting the idea of how we could, if possible, ‘close the net’ a little?

Perhaps an impossible task?

But how does offering cocain, heroin, E’s, whatever for free form the hospital reduce their usage?

I’ve never been adicted to heroin, but I’m sure I’d be more likley to stop if I was paying £100/day for it in a smack den than gettign it free from a hospital.

Some smack head doesnt care how much your £3k bike is worth. If their next hit costs them £10 they will sell it to an ‘innocent’ lad they see on the corner for £10 so they can get their next fix.

The point is, TINAS, if they are getting it free on the NHS they aren’t nicking bikes or mugging grannies to buy it, and people won’t be able to sell it on street corners cos there won’t be a market.

Harm minimisation is more important than reducing usage.

Once you have someone stable on prescribed meds you can look at gradual reduction over time. Taking the stuff isn’t actually that bad for you (well not heroin anyway)its the crime and risky behaviour- sharing needles,etc- that is the issue.

Putting people on methadone keeps them alive while they grow out of it. They may even be able to get a job and start contributing to society.

just my 2p like, from the coal face as it were

TBH I am not even considering reduction, I say let them waste their lives if they want to, its all about freedom of choice. But it would be cheaper for all of us if we just gave them all the drugs they want, TBH it isn’t going to be expensive to make clean stuff. And at least we will keep the petty crime rate down. Perhaps the insurances companies could make a contribution.

I only say this because a school mate of mine is a city centre beat cop and she reckons 90% of her work is dealing with drug dealers and drug addicts.

They may even be able to get a job and start contributing to society.

At least with my proposal they will hopefully take less from society. Just free smack.

The thing is if you are addicted to heroin/any opiate but get a clean safe supply that you can maintain without crime, your life doesn’t have to be wasted- you might not get a job as a judge or copper but you could certainly work for a living.

At a seriously dodgy backstreet garage where I had some bodywork done I was offered two bikes, a Orange5 and a full carbon full suss race bike- both as new for peanuts.

I said bloody well no.

Would I grass on them? Would I ****. They are the sort of blokes who’d pop you in the canal after a few hits with a clawhammer.

I wouldn’t touch anything stolen as it feeds a criminal economy but also the same with drugs. If you buy drugs you are feeding criminals. I bet theres a few coke and smoking users on here.

So where do you draw the line? Both buying stolen bikes and buying drugs has the same net-result. Of course……there is the pick n mix morality of some though..

toys19 – Member

If only it were like this, the reality is that stuff mostly gets stolen by smack heads to sell on for £50 to feed the habit. Even the poshest mtb’s are unlikely to be sold for much. I have heard of cases of very expensive bikes being stolen by more motivated thieves but I feel sure that the vast majority of nickings are due to desperate drug addicts.

I say legalise it, give it free on the NHS. Buy it from the Afghans. Cut crime by an enormous amount overnight, and the war in Afghanistan by giving the Afghans a financial interest in us.

Is the correct answer

50% of crimes like burglary and muggings is smackheads.

It would be so much cheaper to the country just to give ’em smack and let then get on with it. A smackhead with plenty of smack bothers no one. The criminal justice system does no good at all with them. Again we need to look to other countries – in the Netherlands where if you want to get high yo can get cannabis easily and junkies are maintained on the state the number of junkies each year is less and the average age is higher each year. Here each year there are more and the average age is lower.

Its simple pragmatic approach – least harm and cost to the country – give ’em the smack and ignore them. without the danger and glamour of the illegal status less people would become junkies

Other drugs require different approaches

I bet theres a few coke and smoking users on here

there will be more than a few – 2 million people take recreational drugs regularly (4%) so from the demographic of STW I would guess 10% plus and more than that have tried

at some point an ‘honest’ cyclist has to knowingly buy/sell-on or in other words ‘launder’ the parts

I doubt it is as clear cut as that. I’d have thought that there is continuum of ‘cyclists’ buying 2nd hand, from ‘blatantly knowing’, through ‘ask-no-questions’, ‘gullible’ etc. all the way up to ‘honest’

In my experience I’ve met ‘cyclists’ from all of the above demographics.

I agree with militant biker – when parts are so expensive then the oppotunity turns up its hard to say no. Money talks etc. A lot of the time these assholes have no idea/care about the price of some of these parts either. 600quid forks for 50quid? Hello…..

But whats stopping kids going into hospitals on their 16/18/21st birthday or whatever age you legalise the drug from and gettig addicted?

Insert a GPS chip into everyones brain .
After any crime download data for the immediate area.
Disregard old people , Hora etc and ‘ta da’ all crimes become solvable instantly .
One problem is illegal imports , and back street chip removals ( Pass the artery forceps mick, this is in abit further than usual)
George.
I like the smack voucher free on NHS scheme, simple biometric scan and free drugs , up to a point .

At a seriously dodgy backstreet garage where I had some bodywork done I was offered two bikes, a Orange5 and a full carbon full suss race bike- both as new for peanuts.

I said bloody well no.

Would I grass on them? Would I ****. They are the sort of blokes who’d pop you in the canal after a few hits with a clawhammer.

I wouldn’t touch anything stolen as it feeds a criminal economy but also the same with drugs. If you buy drugs you are feeding criminals. I bet theres a few coke and smoking users on here.

So where do you draw the line? Both buying stolen bikes and buying drugs has the same net-result. Of course……there is the pick n mix morality of some though..

lol

A lot of our money ends up in the hands of bankers.. so they can buy Ferraris and prostitutes.. swings and roundabouts…

The drug economy is just one link in a rotten chain.

A lot of bankers also fund the drug economy.

The fact is the police won’t do enough about the stolen bike market, they consider them ‘just bikes’ and can’t see the bigger picture.

Do a weekly search on eBay for Lapierre and every week you will find someone selling a brand new Lapierre for cash on collection, usually from Manchester (that’s not a slur on my home town of Manchester, it’s just fact).
Apparently these eBayers been faking orders to Hotlines from the local bike stores and then having the bikes delivered to either a fake stock house or an alternative address because the ‘shop is closed’. The other way is that they buy the bikes from LBS with a stolen credit cards for which the LBS is covered by their insurance. Either way the bikes don’t get reported as stolen so they are officially not stolen bikes.

I highlighted a few of these to Hotlines and they know all about them. They’ve tried reporting them to the police but they literally have been told ‘they’re just bikes’.

What the police fail to see is that 3 bikes a month at £2k each is £6k. How much drugs can that amount of cash buy in a month and put on the street !!!

Is the correct answer

I’m booking my flight to Scotlsnd now, shall bring jonnies and lube or have you got loads already..

Millitant biker agree

pffttpptftp!

Often wondered myself about a few folk who pop up on here every few months with lots of items. They seem to sell all/most of it, bugger off for 2-3 months then reappear with enough bits to build a dozen bikes again.
Or, bloke at a local car boot, seems knowledgeable and a keen biker so I’ve been told – always has loads of cheap spares.

Not convinced either are ethically sourced to Co-Op standards.

Many of the bikes stolen in the small-hours heist at the BMBS at Margam last year will certainly have been ‘laundered’ as they picked the best bikes: often one-off or team-only frames, and many with the rider’s name under the laquer. Stripped of all the XTR, fancy forks and stan’s wheels they will have had a lot easier time selling the parts on ebay and junking the frames. 😥

I think the mistake too many people make is that it’s always someone ‘different’ to yourself what nicks bikes and sells stolen gear.

Let me tell you now; it’s not. I’d wager there are quite a few ‘well respected’ STWers involved in this. And I’d even wager a number of targeted thefts/burglaries are very possibly masterminded by people who go on rides with/know other STWers. I mean, I know where quite a few live, where and how their bikes are stored, when they’ll be at work, etc. Would be relatively easy tbh.

It’s not *just* smackheads and opportunistic scrotes. It’s not.

Ask yourself; would you buy a bike from someone who appears to know what they’re talking about? The answer is probbly ‘yes’. And you’d probbly trust them too, as they’d seem ‘ok’.

I dare say quite a percentage of kit that goes through this site is bent. And that there are probbly quite a few on here who are riding around on stuff they know is bent, too.

The most successful criminals are those who know how to gain other people’s confidence, how to put people at ease….

Don’t have nightmares.

And that there are probbly quite a few on here who are riding around on stuff they know is bent, too.

Certainly true of mine, tyre is nearly rubbing the wheel

😆

Oh and be careful, some bloke is likely to pop up soon to berate you for spelling probably wrong.

I’ve had 3 different £3k+ bikes nicked within 20 years of riding. I am addicted to hard drugs and spend over £1k per month on them. I work hard, earn lots of money and I’m probably too honest for my own good?

I’d never buy something I knew was nicked, ever.

I agree that free H would lessen crime, also – it’s easy to forget the crime that comes from the top. There’s more than you think most probably, I deal in finance and the amount of villainous people I have to speak with is unreal…