The officers of Commissariat 61, which is responsible for bicycle thefts, made two unusual finds during a control operation on Thursday: one bike had been reported stolen in Berlin, the other as early as 2014. The 90 police officers deployed seized 20 bicycles in total; most had been stolen in Munich and the region in the last three years.
In total, the officials checked 3,500 bikes during the campaign, which was carried out for the first time in a concerted manner throughout the city. As Mario Seifried, the manager of the K61, explained, the integrated manufacturer numbers or codes of the General German Bicycle Club (ADFC) were used to check whether the goods were stolen. In one case, a recently stolen bike was already repainted, in another, the owner wanted to report his confiscated bike as stolen. His statement that he received it as a gift is now being checked.
In 2022, 6,200 bicycle thefts were reported in Munich. In the first quarter of this year, the trend went up steeply, “in the double-digit percentage range,” as Seifried said.