Stolen property, from a bike shop in Uxbridge , has been returned to it's rightful owners after a quick eye spotted an advert trying to sell the loot online.
£8,000 worth of goods were looted from Recycle-a-Bike, on Cricket Field Road, between Friday December 18 and Saturday December 19, including bikes, the shop safe, repair parts, a laptop and iPad.
Nick Gore, a Director at Recycle-a-Bike, says the help they've received from the community and police has been “brilliant.”
He told getwestlondon: “One of our volunteers found an article on Gumtree with all our stolen bikes being advertised. It went back to the Burglary Squad, who was dealing with the investigation, and let them know.
“All of a sudden, within 24 hours, they'd found the suspect, found the property and recovered quite a few of our parts, accessories and five bikes.
“This included one of the customers which bikes was stolen which was great.”
The shop recycles unwanted bicycles, helping to reduce the number of bikes that end up in landfill, and is a volunteer-based organisation helping people suffering from mental health illness by providing “support, training and a stepping stone back to employment”.
Speaking just after the break-in, Mr Gore said: “It’s just a real shame but we've had a lot of support from local customers.
“We’re not a big company we’re a not-for-profit organisation and we try to help environment issues as well and sadly someone’s taking it on themselves to break in and take a load of our stock that we work very hard to get.”
Customer 'over the moon'
Since the burglary, Hillingdon Police and members of the public shared images of the bikes on social media.
Mr Gore was shocked to see the bikes advertised on Gumtree on Sunday (December, 19) evening, but pleased to be reunited with the stolen goods by the following Tuesday.
He said: “We had all of our volunteers glued to eBay and Gumtree over the last week and all of a sudden we found this person advertising the whole lot, which was very bizarre.
“The advert had only been there a few hours so we hoped they hadn't been sold yet.”
The Recycle-a-bike staff smelled a rat when they saw the item descriptions didn't match the images and they were vastly underpriced.
Mr Gore said: “The prices he had them up at were very, very low so he was trying to shift them quite quickly.
“Our laptop is still missing but our stolen iPad five of the missing bikes were returned.
“The biggest bonus for us was to reunite the customer with his bike, he was over the moon to get that back and we were so upset that a customer's bike had been stolen.
“We want to say a big thank you to all the members of the public that have been coming into the shop, our customers, and all of the police teams involved.
“They've been fantastic. We couldn't have asked for any more help and such a quick turnaround, it's been brilliant.”
DC Emma Butcher of Hillingdon Police confirmed that a male was arrested on Monday, December 21 at an address in Uxbridge.
She said: “The arrested person is now on bail and we believe there may be a second person or more involved and are currently investigating this.”
Unfortunately, the remaining missing bikes are the most expensive: a Giant Defy in white and a Tifosi Ck6 Forte in matte black.
If you have any information about the remainder of the missing property or the break in, please call DC Butcher directly on 0208 246 2112.
