How do you steal 2,865 bicycles?

Hire the mentally unstable and have them steal them for you, duh. Well apparently that sounded like a good idea to Toronto resident Igor Kenk, who's being charged with a few dozen counts of bicycle theft as well as some drug possession charges. There's an article about his plight at The New York Times. He had ten rented garages, a used bike shop and a house in an upscale neighborhood--all exploding with stolen bikes.

"That was just the beginning. An additional 200 bikes were seized in Mr. Kenk’s home. Ten landlords around the city reported that their garages had been rented by Mr. Kenk and were bulging with bicycles. As the police gathered the mounds of bikes, they also found cocaine, crack cocaine, about 15 pounds of marijuana and a stolen bronze sculpture of a centaur and a snake in battle."

This guy sounds like a hell of a good time, if your idea of a good time is getting loaded, high and stealing lots of bikes!

Having your bike stolen sucks. Especially if its ur only means of transportation. So I can't really feel badly for this guy, but its still really impressive that he was able to steal that many bikes.

The article speculates that he was holding on to them to potentially melt them down to play the commodities market, or possibly to unload them when gasoline reaches unreasonable prices. Also, Kenk claims to be a former member of the KGB, which is just icing on the cake. It'll be interesting to see this play out in the Canadian justice system. Via NyTimes

And check out my sweet ride on velospace!