Toronto Police Bust a Bike Thief and Notorious BikeShop Owner

Good news from the streets this morning. Toronto Police set up a “bait bike” operation and two undercover officers watched Igor Kenk, the owner of the The Bicycle Clinic (notorious for selling stolen bikes) as he directed a thief with boltcutters to steal two bikes and then paid him:

Igor Kenk, 49, owner of the Bicycle Clinic at Queen St. W. and Strachan Ave., was put in handcuffs just after 7 p.m. by Consts. James Rowe and Craig Meredith, who were watching the corner as part of a “bait-bike” sting.

Both Kenk and Jean Laveau are charged with one count of theft under $5,000, one count of attempted theft under $5,000, and one count of possession of property obtained by crime.

Coincidentally, officers Rowe and Meredith were part of a three-man team who yesterday planted a so-called bait bike at various high-theft locations downtown.

They had planted an unlocked bike at Queen St. W. and Strachan Ave. around 7 p.m. and were watching the corner when their attention was diverted away from the unlocked bait bike to the locked bike which was allegedly stolen.

[from the Toronto Sun]

Good timing after the recent news articles about the high levels of bike theft in Toronto.

Discuss this in the BikingToronto Community.

Filed Under: news, stolen Tagged With: news

Anonymous

THANK GOD!!!!!!!!

Seriously, I heard about this Igor guy like 7 years ago and the crud that he is/was up to.

And I barely live in the city!!… Etobicoke.

I once heard of a person getting their bike stolen, then going straight to Igor’s shop and then stealing his bike back hehe. When mine was stolen, that was the first place I went…

Only thing is… the couple couple relatively small charges doesn’t sound like it will deter him much.
Anonymous

finally!!!!!!
taken the city long enough!!!!!
Anonymous

Glad to see Igor go down! We’ve all known he was a weasel, we just needed the cops to see it too.
Anonymous

look out uncle jacob
Anonymous

Canadian Tire and similar box stores contribute to these thefts, all the locks sold in their stores are grossly inadequate to secure a bicycle for even 5 seconds, and they know it.
Anonymous

Check out Mike the Bike in Kensington Market. My boyfriend and I got both of our bikes stolen last year, a couple days after we found them chopped up in his shop, but we couldn’t do anything because we didn’t have our serial numbers. We have spoken with other legitimate bike shops in that area, they all want Mike the Bike out
Anonymous

Send him back where he came from.
Anonymous

After visiting the 14 division warehouses of Igors bikes this week and reading that only 300 of 2700 have been claimed “stolen” by the public make us wonder a few things.

1. these bikes are actually belong to the bike shop owner perhaps thru “pawn” shop means.
or
2. they are not all from this city.

How does one come up with this theory? well let me tell you..

As i looked through the warehouse of bikes I spotted a beautiful all chrome nikishiki road bike frame in the unmarked section of the warehouse (they are all separated alphebetically) . I stopped and admired it and went on to not find any of my bikes.

When i returned home I googled “chrome nikishiki road bike” and saw a number of descriptions of this brand of bike but no chrome picture.

But what i did find is a ad from a fellow who had post a Craigslist Montreal ad re: losing a nikishiki chrome bike in Montreal and he had left his phone number , i rang him up to let him know his bike may be in toronto and to contact 14 division to see if that is he can send a picture of his bike and perhaps claim what is left of his bike.

Why couldn’t there be a free exchange of “pawn” bikes between cities and provinces?

I read on one of the newspapers that people would see vans in alleyways dropping off “stuff” at all hours and many of us has seen Igors pickup around town (off ossington and out front of his shop). but maybe these vans where from some place else?

In the meantime the rest of the junkers and fab frames that have been recovered are now evidence for the pending case and could wind up back in Igors hands all sorted and labeled for Igor to hoard or sell once he had or has not been punished for the various charges pending.

Just thoughts and real observations

p.s – some of these other post are like sooo cute
Anonymous

a lot of people do not report bike thefts because nothing typically comes of it,, and its time consuming.
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