A thief stole a GoCycle electric bike worth £2,500 but got caught after he called the owner to buy a charger.
Ben Jaconelli, who is the owner of the stolen GoCycle electric bike, is also the owner of FullyCharged.com and the authorized GoCycle dealer in East London. Jaconelli locked his electric bicycle and left it on Kingsland Road in east London. The bicycle was unattended for just 20 minutes and when Jaconelli returned, he realized that the bike was stolen despite being securely locked.
Jaconelli, reported the theft to the police and did not have high hopes of getting back his bike. However, being an authorized dealer of GoCyle turned out to be in Jaconelli's favor as he received a telephone call from a person inquiring about the charger and how to charge the electric bike. Jaconelli immediately understood the caller was none other than the thief.
According to the London Evening Standard Jaconelli wasted no time and took details of the thief and arrived at his house.
"One of the guys at our warehouse has an old army truck so we piled in to that and turned up at his house. He was out, but his mother was in and she got straight on the phone to her son to demand to know why he wanted an electric bike charger," says Jaconelli.
Jaconelli explains that soon the thief called him and asked him why he was at his house to which Jaconelli replied "you stole my bike."
The thief hung up the phone but he soon returned the stolen £2,500 bike to Jaconelli within 20 minutes.
The entire bike theft episode has been reported to the police who are investigating the matter, as well as trying to establish other possible links related to bike theft in the east London region. Till now the police have not arrested anyone with regard to the theft.
Bicycle theft is very common in the UK as many thieves steal the bike and sell them for a very small amount. However, sophisticated thieves also exist who find interested buyers online and sell stolen bikes at a reasonable price. The recent incident is one of a kind as the thief himself returned the stolen bike to the owner.
