Police in Hamburg have dealt a blow to the world of organized bike-crime by retrieving over a thousand bicycles during a raid. Now begins the hard work of identifying and returning the heaps of suspected stolen goods.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Bockwoldt
Advertisement
Hamburg's special police commission for bike theft scored a big win on Tuesday after carrying out raids on four warehouses containing scores of supposedly stolen bicycles.
With the help of 180 officers, a total of 1,500 possibly pinched bikes were secured, ranging in styles from mountain bikes, to women's road bikes and children's bikes.
"We are assuming they are suspected stolen bicycles," Hamburg police spokesperson Timo Zill said. Earlier, authorities said that 3,500 bikes were recovered, but the number was later corrected by police.
A total of 15 trucks and a fork lifter were needed to transport the piles of stacked goods out of the warehouses, located in the area of Rothenburgsort.
By securing the bikes, "the police have succeeded in biggest blow against organized bicycle crime in our history," Zill said.
Investigating suspects
Alongside the warehouse raids, authorities also searched two apartments - one in Hamburg and one in the western city of Essen. Police are investigating three men aged between 42 and 44-years-old. The Hamburg police did not say whether the suspects were detained.
Police also said they believe that only a few perpetrators are responsible for a majority of bike thefts.
Investigators on the special police commission for bike theft are also trying to penetrate the structures of the organized crime rings.
The warehouses, located in an industrial area, were most likely used by the thieves as a collection point for bikes snatched from Hamburg and northern Germany. The stolen goods were then taken to Eastern Europe via vans, police said.
A total of 15 trucks were standing by to help transport the suspected stolen goodsImage: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Bockwoldt
Much work lies ahead
Police will now begin the hard work of cataloguing, identifying and hopefully returning the stolen bikes to their owners.
The work is expected to take a long time, Zill said. Transporting the bikes alone will take up to two days while the cataloguing work will most likely last several weeks. He added that police will work to return the bikes to their rightful owners as quickly as possible.
In one tweet, police said they already identified one sea foam green bike as reported stolen.
According to the German Cycling Club (ADFC), Germany's city-states like Berlin and Hamburg have much higher rates of bicycle theft than the rest of the German states.
In 2015, 4.35 million bicycles and E-Bikes were purchased in Germany but 340,000 bikes were reported stolen in that same year. According to ADFC calculations, that means a bike is stolen in Germany every 90 seconds.
10 bike routes through Europe
Cycling holidays are inexpensive, ecological and popular. And an extensive network of bike paths criss-crosses Europe. Have a look at the routes most popular with Germans. From the Elbe to the Danube.
Image: picture alliance/Arco Images/K. Kreder
Elbe Cycle Route
The route starts in the Czech capital Prague and leads 1,220 kilometers along the Elbe River through the Krkonoše, the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, the arts metropolis Dresden (pictured here), Magdeburg and Hamburg to Cuxhaven on the North Sea.
Image: picture-alliance/ZB/P. Zimmermann
Drava Cycling Route
The 366-kilometer route from Italy's South Tirol to Slovenia begins at the source of the River Drava in the Dolomites and largely follows the river down to Maribor. Over the next few years, it's to be extended to the confluence of the Danube and Drava in Croatia.
The Via Claudia Augusta leads from Donauwörth, Germany, almost 700 kilometers to Venice, Italy. This ancient Roman trade route crosses the Alps and skirts Lake Reschen in South Tirol, where the bell tower of the submerged village of Graun still rises from the water.
This route leads from Maloja, Switzerland, to Passau in Germany. The High Alps require strong leg muscles, before the route descends to the gently rolling Alpine uplands of Bavaria - and through the Market Square of Mühldorf am Inn.
Image: picture alliance/A. Weigel
Atlantic-Black Sea
Only the hardiest manage the entire 4,500-kilometers-plus from the chateaux of the Loire Valley to the Black Sea coast. The east-west axis strings together urban pearls of European culture and history like Nantes, Orleans, Basel, Linz, Budapest, Belgrade and Bucharest.
Image: picture-alliance/ZB/W. Thieme
Etsch Cycling Route
For some 300 kilometers from Reschen to Verona, the route follows the Etsch River, the longest in South Tirol, down to where it empties into the Adriatic Sea. It's well laid-out and maintained, running mostly parallel to the Via Claudia Augusta.
Image: picture-alliance/U. Bernhart
North Sea Coast Cycle Route
The North Sea Coast Cycle Route hops across nearly 6,000 kilometers from the Shetland Islands to Bergen, Norway. This is route EuroVelo 12 in the European Cyclists' Federation network. The German sections often run along the tops of flood protection dikes.
Image: picture-alliance/Bildagentur-online/Klein
Lake Constance Cycle Route
The Lake Constance Cycle Route is among the top three most traveled routes. It runs 260 kilometers around the lake on the German, Austrian and Swiss borders. Cultural sights like Konstanz’s old town complement the countryside’s natural beauty.
Image: picture alliance/P. Seeger
Rhine Cycle Route
From the source of the River Rhine in Switzerland to its delta on the North Sea near Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the EuroVelo 15 route runs 1,230 kilometers along one of the most heavily traveled waterways on Earth. Seen here is the Rheinauhafen in Cologne.
Image: picture alliance/H. Ossinger
Danube Bike Path
This is Germany's most popular long-distance cycling route. The Danube Bike Path runs some 2,850 kilometers from the river's origin at the confluence of the Breg and Brigach in Germany to its delta near Tulcea, Romania. Along the way is the Austrian capital Vienna. The route and the river pass through eight countries.
