Stealing Bikes for the Metal

When I first read this story about a garage owner who is accused of stealing 2865 bikes in Toronto, I was curious because I thought the incentive is pretty straight forward. To my mind, the accused must be a seller of bicycle parts or must live in a city where the total market of riders is high enough to ensure quick turnover of the stolen bikes. I was baffled when I read further that Igor Kenk stored a majority of the bikes in his shop because this implies large storage costs while increasing the probability of detection.

Instead the story states the theory posited by the NYT that Igor Kenk appeared to have noted the rising prices of steel and metals in general and was intent on keeping all the frames and melting them up once the prices started moving upwards again. Igor Kenk had a good idea based on extracting the metals from bikes and playing the commodities market even if the manner of acquiring the bikes was quite crass.he played a sophisticated market but failed to account for an equally clever police force.