"We know who you are" – poster addressed to bike thief gets bike returned to owner

A stolen bike was put back in the place it had been taken from after the owner put up a poster addressed to the thief which said, “We know who you are.”

The child’s bike had been stolen from a communal garage in Velez-Malaga, with a woman reporting the theft to the Policia Nacional, according to a report in Malaga Hoy.

The moment the bike was taken was not captured by CCTV belonging to the residents’ association, but there was footage of a man – whose mask was down – interfering with the camera a few days beforehand, turning it around so it did not cover the bike parking area.

That enabled the mother of the child to whom the bike belonged to identify him as the suspected thief, and she put a notice on the door in the apartment block’s doorway which read: “Important. We know who you are. Return it to the place from which you took it, and I will not report you to the police. They’ve seen you.”

A few hours later, the bicycle reappeared in the same location from which it had been stolen, and the report of its theft to the police has been retracted.

We’ve seen a couple of other stories on Facebook recently of stolen bikes being reunited with their owners.

First up is this story of a very determined mother from southwest London who turned detective after her son’s bike was stolen and eventually managed to get it back a year later – and in the process helped police break up a bike theft ring, with around 30 high-end bikes, including a number of Brompton bicycles, recovered.

Then there’s this tale of a cyclist whose Pinarello was stolen last month in Clapham Junction and spotted in a branch of Cash Converters by a member of the Stolen Bikes in London Facebook group.