Manitoba·NewDriven by the drug trade, bike theft in Winnipeg is creating a more ominous problem, say police.Tubes of bicycle frames ‘just the right size’ to be a gun barrelDarren Bernhardt · CBC News · Posted: Nov 10, 2025 2:18 PM EST | Last Updated: 9 minutes agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Bike theft is a common problem in Winnipeg, but the lack of people registering serial numbers creates a challenge for police trying to investigate and charge those responsible for the thefts. (Lyza Sale/CBC)Driven by the drug trade, bike theft in Winnipeg is creating a more ominous problem, say police.“We found evidence that stolen bikes and their parts are being taken apart and turned into items that can be used as weapons … as some of them are just the right size that they can be turned into an item that can be used as a firearm,” said Insp. Helen Peters, a divisional commander at the Winnipeg Police Service.”The tube casing itself is the right size to hold a shotgun shell.”Peters couldn’t say if such weapons have been used to commit crimes in the city, or when that evolution of the bike theft trade began.”But what I will say is I think we’re seeing more and more of it,” she told CBC Manitoba Information Radio host Marcy Markusa. “So there’s a real continuum of public safety here that we would like to be able to address. But we can only do so with the community’s help and it really starts at the very front end of people giving us the information we need to be able to move these criminal investigations along.”Too often, Peters said, people don’t report their bike as stolen, for whatever reason. It may be that they didn’t record the serial number.When police bust a suspected chop shop like they did in August at a homeless encampment off Waterfront Drive, and recover numerous bikes and parts, it’s difficult to prove the items were stolen if they’ve never been reported as such.And without that, the wheels on the investigation go flat, Peters said.Bicycle parts are seized by police from a chop shop being run out of an encampment off Waterfront Drive in August (CBC)Two men were arrested and charged in connection with the Waterfront chop shop because several items were able to be confirmed as stolen.Police seized five complete bikes, 50 frames, 77 tires and 53 rims. The matter is now before the courts and Peters couldn’t comment much on the investigation.However, she did say police are trying to investigate two other possible bike chop shops.At one site, they retrieved 15 bicycle frames but officers have not been able to identify any as stolen because there are no corresponding police reports.Another 30 frames were seized from the second location. Of those, all but nine had their serial numbers ground off. And not one of the nine had been reported stolen.”So our investigation at this moment is is stalled,” Peters said. “But all of this suggests that there is criminal activity taking place and certainly is something that we would like to pursue and follow up further.”She wouldn’t say if those latter two seizures were made at homeless encampments but hinted they were.“I will say is these are areas on public property,” she said.The frustration in not getting stolen items back can run both ways.Eva Kwok said she had to buy her stolen bike back from a seller on Facebook Marketplace because police wouldn’t do anything about it.Kwok had two bikes stolen from her garage in the city’s Crescentwood area in February. She filed a police report for both but only had a serial number for one. That one was recovered after someone found it lying on their property and called police, who then traced it to Kwok.As for the other one, Kwok scoured Marketplace to see if someone was reselling it. About a month later she saw it listed for $100.She called police to see if they could do something, or if an officer could go with her to retrieve it.“But [they] said that they can’t do anything about it. There’s a property value threshold and the bike didn’t pass that so they don’t really concern themselves with cases like that,” Kwok told CBC’s Markusa.”They also told me that they can’t prove that the people selling it are necessarily the people who stole the bike. So by the end of the phone call, it was basically you’re on your own.”Kwok and her partner went to the pickup location in the Burrow-Keewatin area, paid and loaded the bike into their pickup truck and went home.”We didn’t want any confrontation because we didn’t know who we were meeting,” she said. “I was pretty scared for sure, especially after that phone call with the with the police and knowing that we were on our own.”Peters said she couldn’t speak about specific cases like Kwok’s, but insisted police recover stolen property “far more regularly” than people might be aware, and reiterated the importance of recording a serial number, or at least other identifying markers on bicycles.It’s not uncommon for serial numbers to be filed off, but there are other things people can provide in a police report, such as specific scratches, rust spots, special parts, or other markings. “The more information that we have the better and if we’re able to respond in that moment, or if we have to follow up on it later on as part of an investigative approach, we will do that,” Peters said.”But never hesitate in calling us.”People should absolutely register their bike on 529 Garage, a free online app that spans the country, Peters said.The city launched a partnership with the free registry system in April 2023. It enables people to upload numerous photos of their bike and any identifying marks.Peters called it “an extremely useful tool for us.”ABOUT THE AUTHORDarren Bernhardt has been with CBC Manitoba since 2009 and specializes in offbeat and local history stories. He is the author of two bestselling books: The Lesser Known: A History of Oddities from the Heart of the Continent, and Prairie Oddities: Punkinhead, Peculiar Gravity and More Lesser Known Histories.
Stolen bikes stripped down, parts turned into weapons, say Winnipeg police
