I'm going to put some of the blame on the Denver government/police for this, but not for a lack of enforcement. If your bike is impounded or stolen and recovered it is nearly impossible to retrieve it. You cannot call to see if it was picked up. You cannot look for it online. You have to show up to their sketchy office during business hours, wait in line, and ask the guy to go look through all the bikes and try to find yours. With hundreds of bikes it almost certainly will not be found.<p>The government auctions off some of the bikes and gives or sells the rest of the bikes to charity.<p>Two years ago my bike was locked in a location it should not have been downtown along with many other bikes. When I came back to find my bike missing the police officer said all of the bikes were impounded. I called around, went to the impound place twice.. but my bike was never found.<p>In short, great investigation work by bike index. But their efforts are hindered by the city.
In early high school, we'd ride bikes to the local coffee shop, lean them against the big windows out front and hangout. Somehow, no one noticed when mine was snatched one evening. I was pretty devastated.<p>My grandfather drove me around the town the next day to see if I could spot it. When we were about to give up, I noticed a bike leaning along side a house near the shop. I could see it from the street. It looked exactly like mine. It had the same replacement seat and even a curly bike lock coiled around the handlebars on the same side I left it. But it had been hastily spray pained.<p>We called the police, they arrived and a kid inside noticed the commotion and came out. They had found the bike at the shop and took it. I went to inspect it. I was very surprised when I found the small yard behind the house was packed with around fifty bikes. To the cop, I said something like, "there's tons of bikes back here!" I then remembered another friend had theirs stolen as well.<p>He didn't look for himself, and said I couldn't just take the bike. There was no proof it was mine. So, I said, "what if I can unlock the bike lock?" I could and was allowed to take it, but it had been ruined. My prized shiny bike had been banged up and spray painted.<p>The following week my mother read me a letter that had arrived. The town would not be prosecuting the kid. I was confused. I did nothing wrong and stayed out of trouble myself. Did their actions not warrant any consequences?<p>My mother ended up going to the police department and insisting the town prosecute, which they ended up doing. I'm not sure what happened. Did the consequences dissuade them from stealing a 51st bike? Their family had failed them, would their community? If not for religion, what hope did they have?
I looked to see if they have been sentenced, but instead found this about the fence of the group:<p>"Adrian Rocha Chairez is charged with 31 felony counts including racketeering. Police say he headed up an organized crime ring responsible for more than a million dollars in damaged property and stolen cars and bikes. He was indicted in Denver, where a judge set bond at $500,000.<p>A Boulder judge knocked it down to $10,000. He walked out even after prosecutors noted he had weapons and ties to Mexico."<p>[0] <a href="https://denver.cbslocal.com/2021/12/08/boulder-pr-bonds-murray-district-attorney/" rel="nofollow">https://denver.cbslocal.com/2021/12/08/boulder-pr-bonds-murr...</a>
I can't say that I'm familiar with bikeindex, it seems to be generally the same idea as 529 garage which is much more commonly used in BC/WA/OR/CA.<p><a href="https://project529.com/garage" rel="nofollow">https://project529.com/garage</a><p>Donations to 529 are encouraged and you can buy their sticker, but you can also register your new bike for free just by taking a few photos of it, your bill of sale, and its serial number (typically embossed into the bottom bracket somewhere). Takes a max of 5-10 minutes to do to set up new account and register a bike.<p>I am loathe to recommend the use of Facebook for anything, but people in the metro Vancouver area have taken it on themselves to create a group called Stolen Bikes Vancouver which has successfully crowdsourced the location and return of bikes to some people. It's at least better than doing nothing, in the almost total lack of law enforcement cooperation.<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/stolenbike604//" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/stolenbike604//</a>
> <i>Ideally, this article would hopefully help de-platform this seller off of Facebook, but we aren't holding our breath on that one. Facebook is basically terrible about this, and their existing mechanisms for dealing with reporting sellers like this simply don't work.</i><p>> [...]<p>> <i>There is no button to click where you can explain to anybody at FB "this is a repeat seller of bikes stolen in Colorado, and here's our proof, and here's our contact info." etc. It is almost as if their system for reporting stolen goods is designed not to work.</i><p>So "storefront for stolen goods" is another way Facebook makes our lives worse.
This is a great article. The resale prices of the bikes are also interesting (in the mid 4 figures USD range), considering the per capita income of Mexico vs the USA.
The amount of this behavior on eBay is also pretty stunning, however the rules that have been proposed to curve this basically stand to completely destroy secondary markets which is horrible for single use electronics consumption and the environment in general.
Off topic, but classic film to watch : Ladri di bicyclette, by Vittorio de Sica<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040522/" rel="nofollow">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040522/</a>
Who is buying a $5000 bike from Mexico for a 10% discount. Seems like a lot of risk for a very minor discount on an very expensive item with no warranty. It makes me suspicious there is even more to the story than the author was able to dig into.
off topic: some of these bike brands I have never heard of but they look impressive. The zerode brand has particularly caught my eye.<p>Would it be a waste of money to use these strictly on roads?