{"id":11435,"date":"2024-06-13T08:35:48","date_gmt":"2024-06-13T08:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=11435"},"modified":"2024-06-13T08:35:48","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T08:35:48","slug":"the-west-coasts-fanciest-stolen-bikes-are-getting-trafficked-by-one-mastermind-in-jalisco-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=11435","title":{"rendered":"The West Coast\u2019s Fanciest Stolen Bikes Are Getting Trafficked by One Mastermind in Jalisco, Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

At the dining room table on the morning of my visit, Hance\u2019s fingers spidered across his keyboard. He logs new stolen-bike reports before work in the morning, and at lunch, and again before bed. As he typed, reports of two more stolen bikes landed in his inbox. Both were from California. This didn\u2019t surprise him. \u201cSan Francisco,\u201d he said, \u201cis fucking ridiculous right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the weeks<\/span> after that tip from Mexico, Hance circulated the curious case of the stolen bikes in Mexico to colleagues, savvy Bay Area bike shop owners, cops. He also reached out to some trusted bike vigilantes who hunt stolens. In recent years a passionate subculture has emerged to fight back against bike crime, using a mix of old-school legwork and open source intelligence, following the publicly available fingerprints that nearly everyone leaves behind online. These amateur detectives often swap information and methods, sometimes with the ultimate aim of recovering the stolen bikes. Call them a crowdsourced Justice League. Bike Index and Hance are major planets in this loose constellation of do-gooders. Hance regularly calls on them.<\/p>\n

Almost as soon as Hance saw that Facebook page with all the stolen bikes, it vanished. Before long, though, a volunteer\u2014the guy who\u2019d lost $26,000 in bikes and now wanted to help Hance\u2014called to say he\u2019d found an Instagram account for Constru-Bikes. The account had accepted his request as a follower, thinking he was a customer. \u201cDo you want my password?\u201d the guy asked Hance.<\/p>\n

Armed with the volunteer\u2019s login credentials and a beer, Hance lay down in his backyard hammock and opened the Instagram page.<\/p>\n

Holy shit.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Insta page had so many more bikes for sale than the Facebook page did. There were mountain bikes, road bikes, ebikes. There were brands that Hance had never even heard of, though he swam in a world of bikes every day. Fezzari (now called Ari). Breakbrake17. Devinci. Argon 18. All of them handsome, almost all of them $3,000 or $6,000 or even $10,000 when new. \u201cIt was the Amazon of stolen bikes,\u201d he recounted to me. Every ad came with a slew of close-up photos and details. Hance took screenshots of everything. The shots would help him match the bikes he saw with owners who\u2019d lost them. The pictures were also evidence, and he wanted to preserve them in case they vanished.<\/p>\n

As Hance worked he realized that many bicycles looked familiar. Here, you need to understand something: For people who really know and love bicycles, as Hance does, a mountain bike is never just a mountain bike. It\u2019s a 2016 matte-black Niner Jet 9 RDO. Dual suspension. Carbon frame. 700C Maxxis tires. Shimano XT disc brakes. To a bike geek, such details are like whorls in a thumbprint, marking every bike as unique. Hance possesses nearly a savant\u2019s ability to recall the bicycles he has seen, and details as small as a scratch on a down tube. He lay in the hammock until dinnertime that day, taking screenshots and saving photos and making mental notes to circle back to certain bikes.<\/p>\n

\n
\n