Bike theft has been on the rise recently, and the gardaí are responding by using some new tactics to try and catch the perpetrators.
The "bait bikes" have been in use for several weeks already, and efforts have been concentrated on Dublin city centre, where it seems that a huge amount of bike theft takes place.
Speaking to The Irish Times, Inspector Liam Geraghty revealed that 74% of all bike thefts take place in Dublin in general, while 34% of all thefts that take place nationally happen in the city centre of the capital.
Records show that last year there were 6,750 bicycles stolen, which represented an increase of 230% since 2008, so it has become a priority for the gards to try and prevent as much of the crime as possible.
Geraghty stated that they have identified a number of hot spots, and are leaving bikes with GPS trackers installed on them in those areas: "we’re parking them up on bicycle racks and we’re monitoring them; keeping them under watch to detect if those bikes are going to be stolen or if any other bikes on the rack are going to be stolen".
We guess you could say they're trying to make a wheel impact on crime...
(sorry)
Via The Irish Times
