Ben Jaconelli just recently opened Fully Charged, an East London, England electric bike retailer. Mr. Jaconelli not only sells electric bikes, he rides them too. While out and about, he locked up his electric Go Cycle on Kingsland Road in the London Borough of Hackney. Though he was only away from the bike for 20 minutes, when he returned to where he had left it, it was gone. Mr. Jaconelli was afraid he’d never see his bike again. As the London Evening Standard reports, he would see the bike again, after its thief unwittingly helped him.

After reporting the theft to police, Mr. Jaconelli received a phone call from a man who needed a charger for a Go Cycle. As Mr Jaconelli told the Standard, “I’m the authorized dealer for [Go Cycle] in the area so the thief called me, unaware that it was my bike. He asked for a charger for a Go Cycle and I knew straight away it had to be the thief. I took down as many details for him as possible and then set about tracking him down.”

Ben Jaconelli (Evening London Standard)

And track him down, he did. Mr. Jaconelli and three of his friends arrived at the thief’s house after doing some online research to find his location. As he told the Standard, “He was out, but his mother was in and she got straight on the phone to her son to demand to know why he wanted an electric bike charger. A minute later he called me and asked why I was at his house and I said ‘you stole my bike.’ He hung up and 20 minutes later the bike arrived at [the Fully Charged] warehouse in a taxi.”

The Go Cycle is a pricey piece of equipment. Made by Karbon Kinetics Limited, the model that Mr. Jaconelli rides is worth £2,500 (approximately $4,200). Police say they are investigating the matter and that no arrests have yet been made.

More info: London Evening Standard