On Monday morning, September 16, Otto K.* starts a day like any other: He rides his e-bike to work in the west of Hamburg. Once there, he leaves his bike in the underground car park. But at around 8:03 a.m., Otto’s e-bike is moved unnoticed and stolen by a thief.

After work, Otto K*. goes to the underground car park. He quickly realises that his bike is missing and reports it using the IT’S MY BIKE app at around 17:42. That’s because his e-bike is equipped with an IT’S MY BIKE GPS tracker. The IT’S MY BIKE bike hunters receive the report a short time later and the police are informed.

Otto probably has no idea what has happened to his bike up to this point: after stealing the e-bike from the underground car park, the thief first takes the S-Bahn from Hamburg South to Hamburg-Harburg at 10.26 am and hides the bike in the bushes behind a house at around 11.43 am, just a few kilometres from the vocational schools in Hamburg-Harburg. At around 21:30, the thief sets off again with the stolen goods, initially cycling about 2 kilometres in the direction of the town hall. The bike hunters immediately alerted the police. At 22:28, Otto K.*’s nightmare finally came to an end.

Thanks to the GPS signal, the officers are finally led to an address near the Hamburg-Harburg Vocational School, where they find the stolen bike intact in a hallway of a residential building. There was no sign of the thief. The e-bike is back and Otto K.* is overjoyed.

 

*Name changed by the editors

Symbol image: Adobe Stock