BRAZEN bike thefts caught on film hardly even seem unusual these days. Only a couple of weeks ago we showed you a clip of a motorcycle being stolen from a busy London street as people stood and watched.
But what's different about this clip, posted on Facebook, is that it appears to have been shot by an accomplice to the thieves.
Shot from the seat of a scooter, it shows another rider in a Roof flip-front helmet attacking the disc lock of a Ducati Panigale parked on a residential street at night while a third sits and waits on a Yamaha Tmax.
Sparks fly from the thieves' cordless disc cutter and the Panigale alarm blares as a couple walk past without stopping.
It takes the thieves 90 seconds to remove the disc lock about two seconds to break the steering lock, one of the riders sitting on the bike and pushing a handlebar with a foot.
The rider in the flip-front helmet then gets on the Tmax and uses an outstretched leg to push the other, riding the Panigale, around the corner, where they stop and check under the seat for a tracking device.
After forcing off the seat, one of the thieves beckons the rider filming, who pulls up close to the Panigale so the scooter's headlight illiminutes the space under the seat. A voice is heard saying: 'Check for a tracker.'
The thieves also whack the handlebars back and forth some more, presumably to overcome resistance from the broken steering lock, before making off with the bike again, the one filming still in tow.
The video lasts just over four minutes and was posted on Facebook on Sunday by Usama Patel, who says it was sent to him on the messenger app WhatsApp.
The first comment on the Facebook post asks: 'How did you get the video?'
Patel replies: 'Sent to me WhatsApp'.
There is no suggestion that Patel was involved in the theft.
