Bike thieves in North Vancouver are meeting up with the law through new and creative ways. Recently police arrested two bike thieves not long after having conducted an NV Get Your Bike Back session with the tenants of an apartment building in North Vancouver (view details of program).
A number of tenants responded enthusiastically to the program and registered their bikes with the North Vancouver RCMP.
At approximately 3:00 am on June 3, 2016 an apartment tenant in the 300-block of West 2nd Street reported to police observing two males leaving the underground parking lot in possession of three bikes.
Approximately three hours later, West Vancouver Police noticed and checked the two bike thieves with the stolen bikes as they crossed the Lions Gate Bridge.
Through their investigation police discovered that two of the bikes had recently been registered through the NV Get Your Bike Back program. The two bike thieves, both adult males from Vancouver, were arrested for Theft, Possession of Stolen Property and Breach of Court Orders.
Daniel Perez-Valencia, an owner of one of the recovered bikes, expressed his gratitude to the North Vancouver RCMP who returned his bike to him within hours of it being reported as stolen. This program clearly works, said Daniel. I highly recommend everyone to have their bike registered with the RCMP. I need my bike to commute daily to work and I am extremely impressed by how quickly the police recovered my bike.
North Vancouver RCMP has also seen success with their ongoing Bait Bike Program. Three recent separate arrests have been made by the RCMP as a result of Bait Bike activations in North Vancouver.
The thefts occurred on May 31, June 01 and June 07, 2016 all in various locations in North Vancouver with both day and night time activations. North Vancouver RCMP Strike Force arrested and charged three Vancouver residents with Theft and Possession of Stolen Property. One of the accused has already pleaded guilty to these criminal charges and was sentenced to 18 days in jail.
North Vancouver RCMP are very pleased with the early success of our NV Get Your Bike Back program along with seeing the impact Bait Bike arrests are having, said Insp. Jennifer Hyland, Officer in Charge of Operations. I encourage all North Vancouver bike owners to register their bike at nvgetyourbikeback@rcmp-grc.gc.ca. The program works!