STOLEN mopeds worth more than £2,000 can easily be bought on the borough’s streets for less than £100, a New Journal investigation has revealed.
An organised crime ring using builders’ vans is cruising Camden, stealing up to 40 mopeds a month and selling them on to drug dealers.
As a police clampdown on moped-riding troublemakers in Regent’s Park and Somers Town entered its fourth week without any arrests, stolen bikes were offered to reporters by a gang of older, professional thieves and teenagers working the streets of Kentish Town.
Residents on crime-plagued estates have long complained of youths riding mopeds on pavements late at night. Pounds at Albany Street and Kentish Town police stations are regularly filled with stolen and recovered mopeds.
The New Journal investigation revealed bikes are traded outside Edith Neville School in Somers Town and in Queen’s Crescent, Kentish Town.
Last Wednesday a group of youths in Queen’s Crescent offered to sell a reporter a £1,500 50cc NRG scooter with keys for just £100. One said: “For £250 tell me what you want and I’ll go and nick it for you now.”
And in Somers Town a man said on Tuesday: “I haven’t got a ’ped to sell but I know where to go if you want one.
“Kids as young as 10 nick them. They’ll sell them for £50 to £100, depending on how generous they’re feeling.”
A black market closely linked to Kentish Town’s drug trade involves a group using a van to steal up to 10 mopeds a night.
New Journal reporters investigating the underworld gang were approached by a builder who claims to drive their van.
He said: “I was in cash trouble and they asked if I would help out.
“They filled the back of my van up with bikes, stole 10 in an evening, five at a time, then went back to a lock-up to unload and gave me £500.
“They are stored at a couple of garages on Camden estates.
“It became such easy money that I go out maybe twice or three times a month and get anything up to 40 bikes.
“It doesn’t matter if a bike’s locked. You just lift it up, throw it in the back and drive off.
“You can disable alarms by sitting on the saddle and kicking the handlebar stem. That knocks out the electrics and also breaks the steering lock.
“We either flog them to people we know, or we go to a couple of estates where drug dealers will pay cash for them, then give them to their couriers to use to drop off drugs.
“We also used them to sell to a couple of gangs who use them for robbing shops or mugging teenagers in Hampstead and Golders Green.
“It’s worth spending a few quid to get them because they end up mugging rich kids. They dump the bike straight afterwards.”
Late last month police officers out to catch illegal riders issued fines to motorists and warned two 21-year-old moped riders about the condition of their bikes, but the operation has so far failed to snare thieves.
Sergeant John Burnett said: “We have had several youths complaining that we are ‘spoiling their fun’.
“However, the majority of residents have said that they are finally getting some sleep at nights.”