By Joe Veyera
A Ballard man used the power of Craigslist to retrieve his stolen bike, thanks to the posting of a not-so-clever criminal on the site.
According to the post from the Seattle Police Department, the victim had returned home last Saturday to find a cut lock, and his red Specialized Hardrock bicycle missing. He filed an online report with the SPD, and headed to Craigslist, where he noticed an advertisement for a bike quite similar to the one he had stolen from him.
The victim called the person running the ad to set up a meeting for Monday, and notified police, providing a detailed description of his stolen bike (including the location of certain stickers) and asked police to come along.
When the victim and officers met with the person that posted the ad, it was confirmed that the bike posted for sale was the one that had been pilfered. The suspect was taken into custody for possession of stolen property and booked into King County Jail.
The SPD reminds residents that if their bike is stolen, check out SPD’s Twitter feed, @Getyourbikeback, which posts the descriptions of found and abandoned bikes around the city.