This bicycle bar “Am Friedrichshain” in Prenzlauer Berg was cut through by thieves with a pipe cutter Photo: Charles Yunck
By Isabel Pancake
Berlin’s bicycle thieves have a new tactic: they use a pipe cutter to simply cut through bicycle brackets – and then take the attached bikes with them. In Pankow alone there have been 15 such cases in the past two years!
Total costs for replacing the brackets: just under 6,000 euros. In response to a BZ request, the district office writes: “Separating bicycle hangers using pipe cutters is a relatively new form of property damage in Pankow with the purpose of stealing bicycles and/or preparing bicycle hangers in such a way that the theft of bikes connected to them is made easier.” Current For example, a bicycle rack on Am Friedrichshain is affected.
Easy to miss: The bicycle bar was manipulated in one place and was simply pushed back together after the cut. A newly connected bike can be easily taken with you Photo: Charles Yunck
The result: Pankow no longer installs new round tube brackets, instead only stands “with a rectangular profile”. However, the district office recommends that you always check the condition of the stand and connect both the bicycle frame and the bike.
According to the police, this is a “particularly serious case of bicycle theft”.
Other districts are also struggling with the problem. The Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district is therefore also considering using other bicycle racks in the future.
The new theft scam was already in Mitte (“single-digit range annually”), Tempelhof-Schöneberg (“in recent years […] estimated a dozen”) and Neukölln (“scattered cases of this type”) were foundbut the districts still want to continue setting up the easily cut so-called “Kreuzberger brackets”. …