I read an article last week about Igor Kenk. He was a weird dude who lived in Tornto, ran a dilapidated bike shop, and everyone thought he stole bikes. I believe that first story was about how he got arrested for the theft. There's a new article today. According to that one, the police have recovered 2,865 stolen bikes. That's crazy! The article asks, and so do I, what was he planning on doing with that many bikes. He was obviously acquiring them way faster than he could sell them. Did he really, really hate bikes? He ran a bike shop, but that could have just been a cover. Was he trying to defend his neighborhood from the influx of hipsters? Brooklyn has lots of bike theft and it doesn't seem to be stopping anything. It's totally baffling.
Also of note, he claims to be an ex-KGB agent. Maybe the Soviets were planning to cripple North American infrastructure by taking away all the bikes.
Fascinating story. I'm willing to bet that the author of the article, one Ian Austin, never in his wildest dreams would write some of those bizarre sentences. Seriously, about half of the lines are details that get more and more bizarre. I hope Mr. Austin enjoyed the assignment.
ReplyDeleteAn undercover bike-theft sting operation (where the planted bikes failed as bait)? Check. Stolen bronze sculpture of a centaur and snake in battle? Check. A network of mental health patients hired to steal bikes? Check. A pianist partner with drug charges? Check.
I think the saddest photo I've seen recently is the one of the sad residents searching the inventory for their stolen bikes.
I think this guy was planning for the long term: With the coming lack of petroleum and other natural resources, bikes may become prohibitively expensive to produce, causing old beaters to skyrocket in value, and then - BOOM! He's sitting on a goldmine! Genius, really. (I keep trying to explain to my wife that this is why I hoard bike parts, but she isn't buying it.)
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