Ostrava police catch bike thieves in 200,000-crown theft

Police in Ostrava have caught a young man and two underage boys who stole three racing bikes from outside a shopping center. The bikes, worth more than 200,000 crowns, belonged to three foreign cyclists who had come to the city for a bike race.

Patrol officers' attention was drawn to a man who wasn't riding the bike but walking it alongside him. “Right from the start it struck us as odd, because road cycling requires special shoes, and the man wasn't wearing any,” said police spokeswoman Eva Michaliková. The officers decided to check him out.

The man initially claimed he wanted to buy the bike and was just testing it, but the officers didn't believe him. They contacted colleagues at the operations center, who happened to be taking a report about the theft of three racing bikes from outside the shopping center at that very moment.

Two more stolen bikes were spotted by another officer who was driving home after his shift. From his car he saw two underage boys walking bikes, and knowing about the theft report that had just come in, he called in a patrol — the suspects were detained.

It turned out the bikes belonged to three foreigners who had decided to go shopping in Ostrava after the race. They had parked their expensive bikes in a bike rack without locking them. “They stepped away for literally a minute, and when they came back, all they found was an empty rack,” Michaliková explained.

For solving the theft quickly and returning the bikes to their owners, the cycling team presented the police with a letter of thanks. The case is being handled by forensic investigators from Ostrava-Hrabůvka.

Read also: 9 best cycling routes around Prague: from the Vltava riverfront to Karlštejn Castle

Source: novinky.cz