Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Obviously many thousands of bikes get stolen every year......

And then what happens to them? I'm sure someone will have a ton of answers to this, but I don't. Is it easier than I think to change a VIN and sell a hot bike? If they are busted into parts, where are they unloading them? I've never seen any ads with large stashes of modern parts at cheap prices or anything. I've prowled around some pretty low circles (not the lowest by any means) but I've never encountered anyone dealing hot parts. Just a few losers selling obviously ripped off bikes for enough cash to get their next fix here and there.

These guys ain't stealing bikes for their health, how do they make their cash at it?

EBAY

M dad (xjrjohn) had his bike (GS850) stolen some years back. At the time, the cop said it would be broken down and shipped out as parts by the end of the week.

Unfortunately, there are people out there who would not think twice about buying a dodgy bike or parts if the deal was good enough.

On of the best forms of protection over here we have is the Datatag system. This puts a unique number on all saleable parts, including microchips injected into the seat, and is a great detterent to this type of thief.

There was a questionable shop here in town until last year, where the owner took great pride in telling customer that he was selling bent frames for high prices to people south of the border. All you need is a bent frame to cut the headstock and serial# off, then go in and buy a new frame at the dealer. Then you replace the stolen bikes frame with the new one that has had it's serial number re-certified by the dealer. He was laughing as he was telling me how much money he made off of these guys.....

I also new of a bunch of "S()!^heads" out west that had a salvage license and could rebuild bikes and put new vin numbers on them.
They got busted when they went on a big run and the cops stopped them at a random check point and noticed 2 of the bikes had consecutive VIN numbers so when they investigated further they found out the bikes were built from stolen parts.

All very interesting, alright.

Surprising that such activities can suck up the numbers of bikes that go missing every year.