At the border

Scrap car immediately attracted attention: Bicycle thief caught

The two soldiers were able to apprehend a criminal who is believed to have committed a series of bicycle thefts.

(Bild: Christian Schulter)

Soldiers on an assistance mission proved their criminalistic intuition. As they were checking cars at the St. Margarethen border crossing, they noticed a car from afar that was "pretty desolate". The initial suspicion was confirmed: according to the police, the Hungarian license plate was wanted. The man at the wheel is a suspected professional thief.

At around 7.30 a.m. on Thursday morning, the criminal, who specializes in bicycle thefts, was probably already on his way to his next coup in Austria. However, his wrecked car immediately seemed suspicious to the border guards in St. Margarethen. While they were taking a close look at the car, the police were already alerted.

Man is a serial thief
It soon emerged that the Hungarian license plates were listed in the wanted persons database due to several criminal offences. Further investigations revealed that the driver was linked to a whole series of bike thefts. The soldiers detained the suspect until the officers arrived. Arrest! "The investigation, which has only just begun, is likely to take several more days," they said.

Almost 500 offenses
In Burgenland, the number of bicycle thefts rose sharply last year. Offenses increased by almost 50 percent. A total of 482 crimes were reported, according to statistics from the Ministry of the Interior. With 584 thefts, the crime rate was only higher in 2016.

In 2023, the most bicycles were stolen in the district of Neusiedl am See with 251 offenses, and the fewest in the district of Güssing with eleven reports. Although the detection rate is the highest in a comparison of federal states at 18 percent, it is still low.

Ein Sachverständiger

GPS transmitter reveals perpetrators
An imprisoned serial offender who caused almost 80,000 euros worth of damage confessed. The 48-year-old Hungarian had been stopped on the A 4 at the Parndorf exit after stealing three bikes mounted on a car's bike rack in an underground car park in Salzburg just a few hours earlier. What he didn't realize was that one of the bikes was equipped with a GPS transmitter. Caught!