A team of four alleged motorbike thieves acting in Bali were recently arrested.
The group got so good at stealing motorbikes that it would only take them two minutes to steal a bike, according to police.
“They used a pocket knife and a t-lock to manipulate their victim’s locks. On average, they would need two minutes to steal a motorbike. They would work in a group, so they could take four motorbikes at once,” Chief of Denpasar Police’s criminal investigation unit Reinhard Nainggolan said on Monday to Tribun Bali.
An investigation spanning three-months led police to East Java in pursuit of the perps, where Langkah Harianto, Budi Santoso, Patla, and Usman Balok were ultimately arrested.
But the four apparently put up a fight when they were caught, trying to resist arrest with “sharp weapons.” But, police did what they do best, disabling Harianto, Santoso, and Balok by shooting them in the legs.
The group would smuggle stolen motorcycles from Bali over to Java, where they would be resold. They would often act at night, when duty officers at Gilimanuk were apparently less alert and did not check cargo as thoroughly, reports said. Stolen bikes were on average sold for Rp 2 to 2.5 million.
In addition to arresting those four, police also reportedly arrested two bike thieves in a Lombok ring and another man in East Java that would be on the receiving end of the stolen bikes coming from Bali.
Nainggolan said that unfortunately we shouldn’t necessarily expect the rate of stolen motorbikes to go down, even despite all these arrests. Police are still chasing similar roaming thief networks, he added.
