Brussels police may have finally gotten an OK to try using ‘bait bikes,’ fitted with hidden trackers, to hunt down and arrest bike thieves in the city, but the details are still being worked out between the police and public prosecutors.
It’s been almost ten years since the project was proposed after successful use in the Netherlands, and for the past few years in the Belgian city of Ghent. Originally, the idea was not so much to arrest individual thieves or even gangs but rather to get a better picture of where stolen bikes end up in order to plan an effective theft-prevention strategy.
First proposed for Brussels in 2014, it didn’t get government approval until 2016, when seven bikes were prepared. They’ve sat unused since. Police say prosecutors don’t take bike theft seriously, so there’s no point putting the bikes out. Prosecutors have raised questions of whether the program would provoke crimes.
Now the prosecutors have indicated they would agree to use of the bikes if the plan is to arrest thieves immediately, while police and bike advocates want to hold back and follow the chain to try to recover many more bikes if they are able to identify how the bikes are fenced. There is now hope that a plan can be implemented by summer.
