An ongoing undercover operation focused specifically on sportbike thefts in the San Diego, California area has led to more than 50 recovered vehicles, dozens of arrests and perhaps most importantly an increased awareness about how sportbikes are targeted, stolen and fenced. “Sportbike crooks have learned that law enforcement is not familiar with sportbike theft, so they’re not as likely to get caught doing this (compared to) committing another crime,” says Detective Anthony Molina, a member of the Chula Vista Police Department assigned to the San Diego Regional Auto Theft Task Force (RATT). Molina and Det. Martin Bolger, another member of the Chula Vista department, were working with the task force in mid-2007, buying stolen vehicles, when they noticed an upswing in the number of sportbikes that thieves were trying to fence. At the same time, a representative from State Farm Insurance contacted the task force, saying that the company’s payouts for stolen sportbikes were increasing dramatically. So Bolger and Molina started to do some research into the theft of sportbikes in the San Diego area. “All of the agencies we checked with showed an increase in motorcycle thefts,” Bolger says. “And the recovery rates were well, the recovery rate for stolen automobiles was about 65%, but for motorcycles it was 10% to 12%. In some cities, the recovery rate was zero they hadn’t recovered one motorcycle. The chances of getting your bike back were all but nil.” The pair started looking for law enforcement programs focused on preventing sportbike theft and found nothing. So they created their own Operation Knee Drag. The pair have spent the past year and a half studying and infiltrating rings of motorcycle thieves. To date, they have recovered more than 50 stolen motorcycles and made more than 55 arrests. But what’s just as important is what they have found out about sportbike thefts and their efforts to educate other members of law enforcement about what they’ve found. For example, they say: – Most of the motorcycles stolen in the San Diego area are ridden directly into Tijuana, frequently through the San Ysidro port of entry, which is so busy that border officials cannot shut down the border crossing. “You have tens of thousands of vehicles that use that every day. If you shut it down for five minutes, it would create complete chaos,” Bolger says. “So they just blend right in with all the other traffic.” – Motorcycle thieves have learned to keep the tools of their trade which usually are tools and equipment that are perfectly legal to own separate in their vehicles. That way, when their cars or trucks are searched, even a conscientious officer wouldn’t see an assembled “theft kit” or know what the tools and equipment are being used for. – More than half the sportbike thefts take place during normal business hours, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. – Many thefts take place in secured lots and underground garages in businesses and apartment complexes. – Military personnel suffer a disproportionate amount of theft. Many military personnel lack all of the paperwork or equipment (reflective vests, for example) required to ride their bikes onto a base. So if you cruise past a military base gate during the day, you will often see sportbike after sportbike parked in a lot off-base, not patrolled by MPs. Thieves cruise the lots, note which bikes are parked there, and call their fences, who place orders from among the parked bikes. The thieves go back later, with all the tools needed to steal that specific model. Motorcycle thieves rarely steal a bike cold. They usually carefully case the location, the motorcycle, and come back later specifically to steal that bike.