Dopey e-bike thief asks owner for charger
Ben Jaconelli of fullycharged.com who was reunited with his £2,500 bike, next to the army truck he pursued the thief in - Credit: London Media
Dopey bike thieves stole a £2,500 electric bike – then unwittingly called the owner for help recharging it.
Ben Jaconelli’s locked Go Cycle was stolen on Kingsland Road in Dalston.
But after contacting police, Mr Jaconelli, 30, who has just opened a shop on Old Street roundabout and runs the electric bike website Fully Charged, received a call from a man asking for a charger for a Go Cycle.
Realising it was for his beloved bike, Mr Jaconelli, of Kingsland Road, jumped into action, even going round to the thief’s house in a 1970s army tank.
He said: “I’m the authorised dealer for Go Cycles in the area so the thief called me, unaware that it was my bike.
“He asked for a charger for a Go Cycle and I knew straight away it had to be the thief.
“I took down as many details for him as possible and then set about tracking him down. One of the guys at our warehouse has an old army truck so we piled in to that and turned up at his house.
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“He was out, but his bemused mother was in and she got straight on the phone to her son to demand to know why he wanted an electric bike charger.
“A minute later he called me and asked why I was at his house and I said ‘you stole my bike.’
“He hung up and 20 minutes later the bike arrived at the warehouse in a taxi.”
The details have been passed on to police who are investigating links to other missing bikes in the East London area.
Mr Jaconelli added: “There is a such a close network of dealers and I had alerted them all to the theft. Even if he did not ring me, I would have found out about it pretty quickly.”
His specialist electric bike site, www.fullycharged.com, launched its first store last night on Old Street roundabout.
