massive support.

For after The Royal Gazette revealed that Colonial Insurance was to sign up a `bounty hunter' to track bike bandits and pay rewards to anyone who turns in a bike thief, the company has been deluged with calls of support.

Now the firm hope to have the reward scheme in place as early as next week, with their own investigator on duty as soon as possible afterwards.

Colonial chief William Madeiros said: "The phone hasn't stopped ringing -- I've had more than 100 calls from people who think the idea is fantastic.'' He added one accountancy firm where several members of staff have been hit by bike thieves had even had a whip-round and will donate the cash to the reward scheme.

And members of the public -- who said they didn't want a reward -- have called the firm with information on suspected stolen bikes.

Mr. Madeiros said: "There has been a groundswell of decent, law-abiding citizens tired of having their and their friends' property stolen and having to pay higher insurance premiums because of it.'' He added that he would be at a meeting on Thursday of the Police-led team set up to tackle bike theft and headed by Assistant Commissioner Wayne Perinchief.

And Mr. Madeiros said: "Now we have this level of support in the community, we would be very happy to see the reward scheme started almost as soon as the meeting is finished.

"Money will be in the hands of the Police to disburse as they see fit as soon as possible.'' He added that the Police had already vetted one candidate for the investigator's post and other names would be submitted.

Mr. Madeiros said: "We don't want to get into this Big Brother thing, but in specific target areas, it would be nice if people were more concerned about stealing a bike because they didn't know who was watching them.'' And the two-pronged attack on bike crime, if successful, could bring dividends for the firm's customers in the form of lower premiums. The Royal Gazette revealed details of the Colonial Insurance plan yesterday.

It came in the wake of more than 2,530 bike thefts -- worth around $3.8 million -- last year alone. The figures for this year are unlikely to show a dramatic improvement.

Police spokeswoman Roseanda Jones said that the reward offer was similar to the already-successful Crimestoppers scheme.

She added: "We welcome any initiatives the private sector introduces which could help bring down the number of bike thefts.

"There are ongoing meetings with the team which was set up by Commissioner to look at the problems of cycle theft and we are happy to discuss anything which could cut this major problem.''