13 November is a day that Chris B.* won’t forget anytime soon. In the afternoon that day, a bike thief tampered with a window in his holiday apartment and stole his e-bike from inside. But there was one thing the thief failed to notice: the top-end bike was fitted with an IT’S MY BIKE GPS tracker.

Chris B. was completely unaware when the thief absconded with his bike. He didn’t notice the theft until five days later, on 18 November, but then immediately reported it to the Bike Hunter Team via the IT’S MY BIKE app. They promptly initiated a search.

The latest data points indicated that the thief apparently fled on the stolen bicycle from Mönkeberg on the Kiel Fjord on 13 November, heading towards Gaarden-Ost and continuing westward past Neumühlen-Dietrichsdorf and Wellingdorf. There, he came to a halt in a residential neighbourhood, around 4 km from central Kiel.

The stolen bicycle was presumably still located in one of the buildings as the tracker recorded a temperature of around 28 degrees. However, on 14 November, the tracker’s battery ran low and it ceased to emit any further GPS signals.

However, the GPS tracker intermittently reported at short intervals between 2 and 4 December – the bike was evidently being used and the tracker was recharged automatically.

On 5 December, the tracker emitted a perfect signal at 1.18 a.m. in the middle of the night. The bicycle was moving in the car park outside a large supermarket. When the Bike Hunter team became aware of the movement on the morning of 5 December, they promptly alerted the police in Kiel. At 07:07, the officers headed directly to the last GPS point, which was approximately 6 km further west, near the Vorderer Russee. They found a truck and several vans at the specified location. They attempted to trigger the bicycle’s motion sensor by rocking the individual vehicle cabins.

When the truck owner arrived, he drove forward about 50 m. This didn’t activate the motion sensor, but the officers discovered the stolen bike in one of the vans. They are now investigating the circumstances further. The e-bike was recovered and Chris B. was notified

*Name changed

Stock image: Adobe Stock