Cycle theft figures for March and April are down from the same period last year, but the new Sergeant in charge of the Vehicle Crime Unit, Det. Sgt. Raoul Ming, vowed "we're not going to rest on our laurels because the figures look favourable".

Det. Sgt. Ming knew the magnitude of the task when he took over from Sgt. Terrence Maxwell in December. Cycle theft is a decades old problem that will always exist, but there are ways to tackle it, Sgt. Ming believes.

"When I first came into this department my main focus was on getting involved within the community, because when we look at the number of cycles in here, it's obvious we can't do it on our own," said Sgt. Ming.

Late last week the number of recovered stolen cycles in the impound was between 90 and 100, with the department having started to dump some of the bikes after owners failed to collect them. About half of them will go to a watery grave.

"We give people the chance to come by and collect their cycles, and half of this is probably a result of people not responding to the call, either from officers as well as the newspaper ads telling people to come in or call," said Sgt. Ming as he pointed to the cycles in the yard.

Most of them are salvageable, many virtually intact minus a few parts, but the owners don't seem to be too interested in having them back.

"What we will do is dump and today marked our very first day for dumping cycles," said Sgt. Ming. "We can anticipate dumping about half of the cycles you see here - that ridiculous, isn't it? Some of them have been retrieved but the owners are not contactable or they don't even wish to collect the cycle in the state that it is in."

Sgt. Ming has a story to tell about many of the cycles that have come into the impound since he has been in the Vehicle Crime Unit as Sgt. Terrence Maxwell's successor.

"This cycle here was recovered after a chase, but we don't have a clue whose bike it is," he said, standing beside a bike with a false licence plate and serial numbers rubbed off and replaced with different numbers.

"The engine has been restamped and the frame number has also been restamped. Even with acid we can't find out who the actual owner is," Sgt. Ming said, adding that the theft was a `drop and run' - meaning the culprit may have abandoned the cycle believing he was about to be caught. "The owner may have contacted us before but we have no way of knowing."

Added Sgt. Ming: "There is another Suzuki RC over there where a young man got in an accident and he had to get new parts for it. Two days after he got the new parts someone stole the bike, he got a call to say his bike was recovered, he came by to have a look at his bike and was completely annoyed to see what state his bike was recovered in.

"He wants to see if he can rebuild the bike. As you could imagine, this bike was road worthy when he parked it outside his house. He gets a call from us telling him to come and pick up his bike and this is what it looks like. It is disappointing!

"I particularly felt sorry for this guy because of the money he spent to rebuild it and two days later it was stolen. Hopefully he can put some more money into it and then better secure it."

Some of the bikes in the yard still have locks on them...around the basket or another part of the bike which obviously failed to prevent the theft. Thieves who are skilful enough to remove a bike in less than a minute, find an unlocked bike easy pickings.

"Hopefully in the very near future there is going to be a new system of identifying parts that will greatly assist us in our quest to return vehicles and parts to people, and discourage people from stealing bikes and parts from other persons," said Sgt. Ming.

It is quite common these days for stolen bikes to end back up on the road with a different licence plate, whereas in the 1970s and `80s bikes were mostly stolen for parts. "Let's say your bike was stolen, you would go and steal somebody else's bike, file it down and put your numbers on the frame and engine casing as well," said Sgt. Ming. "U-marking is good. We have a u-marking kit here and try to u-mark as many parts as we can, so even if the bike is stripped down, hopefully we can identify smaller parts on the bike and get those parts back to the rightful owner."

Officers in the Vehicle Crime Unit estimate that most of the cycle thefts are done by a few hardcore bike thieves, many of whom have been identified. Some of the other thefts are carried out by opportunists, those stranded, say, in Hamilton and needing `trans' or transportation to get home in the eastern or western parishes.

"We're finding a lot of bikes stolen in town and picked up in Somerset or St. George's, and that's mainly for transport," said Det. Con. Brian Robinson, the longest serving officer in the department with 13 years under his belt. "It's late at night, they don't want to take a taxi so taking somebody's bike is just as easy."

In February the Marine Section retrieved about 25 bikes from the waters in the Great Sound along the Sandys shoreline just off Sound View Road.

"And they reckon they left a good 25 submerged," said Sgt. Ming. "It was a bike graveyard."

Another deterrent to bike theft, Sgt. Ming feels, is parents who know what their children are doing, as well as the community in general being more vigilant. "If we can appeal to the public to be a bit more vigilant, where if they see someone fiddling with a bike as they are driving home, a simple call into the Police Station can help because that person may be `prepping' a bike to steal it or just stole the bike," said Sgt. Ming, who has been a policeman for almost 16 years, mostly working in traffic.

"People on a whole aren't bad, so obviously the people who are doing this is a small number who commit crimes over and over. If you target a known cycle thief and you are successful in prosecuting you will see the number decrease.

"We're trying to focus our investigations on known cycle thieves, get them dealt with by the courts, and that has helped us lower the numbers as well."

During the summer when schools are out, cycle crime has been known to increase. Many of the thefts are committed by teenagers, some as young as 14 or 15, as Sgt. Maxwell revealed more than a year ago. The Honda Scoopy remains the most stolen bike with the Suzuki RC the second most popular.

"Perhaps every make of bike that is sold in Bermuda is represented in the impound and that is sad," said Sgt. Ming regretfully.

`A new cycle thief is born every day. Having said that, stealing a bike is a crime of opportunity. You are walking somewhere and don't have a ride and you see a bike on the road. If you know how to hot-wire it, it may be tempting especially if it isn't secured properly."

Even so, that is no excuse for taking something that doesn't belong to you, and Sgt. Ming believes parents can help cut out cycle thefts by watching their boys' activities.

"When parents have sons who work on bikes at home, if the parents see the son bring home different bikes on a regular basis, it is incumbent on the parents to find out the origin of that cycle," Sgt. Ming stressed.

"Oftentimes what happens is that this child may have actually stolen the bike to bring home to work on it to try to make it as legit as possible.

"Bike thefts affect everyone. It affects even the person who has never ridden a bike. If you have a car your premiums go up because the insurance is going to get the money from somewhere. To insure a bike comprehensively, the rates right now are alarming."

Sgt. Ming has eight constables in his department, two clerical staff, one impound officer and an office manager.

"The remaining officers each have three parishes that they are attached to, so any calls of stolen cycles within their parish they are responsible with speaking to the complainant and following it up," he explained.

"Let's say your bike gets stolen on a Friday night. On Saturday morning when you wake up you are going to file a report at either Hamilton, Somerset or St. George's Police Stations. Nine times out of ten that is the last time you speak to Police unless we find your bike, but once the complaint form comes up to our office, with the system we have now with everyone assigned to parishes, the team leader would assign different reports to different officers.

"They touch base with the complainant to see if they have any extra leads or have found their bike, because oftentimes people find their bike and don't report it. And then if the caller doesn't call in and say they found their bike, they could be riding their bike one night and we will stop them. and it may lead to an arrest if the person doesn't have the right documentation. I urge the community to help us help them.

"I have instituted that (community follow-up) since I came here in December and it seems to be working. The officers become intimately involved with their community and it puts the thief on notice. We make house calls as well, just to let that person know we are watching them.

"There is no down time when it comes to investigating vehicle crime. It takes all the police officers, not just those in the Vehicle Crime Unit."

Sgt. Ming also believes drugs play a big part in bike theft, with thieves stealing a bike and selling it the same day for parts - just for a few dollars to buy drugs.

"Most of our crime can be attributed, either directly or indirectly, to the misuse and abuse of drugs," he stated.

Det. Constable Robinson concurs.

"Kids now are stealing a bike and selling it for $100 to get drugs," said Det. Con. Robinson who isn't shocked by what he sees these days.

"Bikes are being stolen by people for transport, taking drugs from one place to another and if they get caught they just drop the bike and run from the police and nothing of theirs is lost."

Det. Con. Robinson thinks there is something else leading to cycle theft. "It starts off with the distributor, either not having the parts available or they are so expensive a 16 or 17-year-old kid cannot afford it," he says.

"Look at a Honda Scoopy, for example. If you have an accident, it is going to cost you over $1,000 just to replace the front end...and that's a conservative price.

"A wheel alone, rim, tyre and disc, is probably in the region of $600. What 16-year-old has that money? If he claims on the insurance, the insurance goes up which the parents end up paying.

"A lot of those kids won't tell us, but they know who to go to to get a second hand part that they are aware has possibly been stolen."

Sgt. Ming reminds that receiving stolen parts is just as serious an offence as the theft itself.

"If you know something is stolen then you actually helped to steal that part."

Added Det. Con. Robinson: "There will always be cycle thieves. It's a right of passage - well it was when I came up. But we can put a dent into it."