Students stole bikes to sell on Leboncoin
In Tarbes, a town in the Gascony region of south-west France, two engineering students are suspected of stealing bicycles. The bikes allegedly belonged to some of their fellow students at the École nationale d'ingénieurs. After stealing the bikes, the aim of the two Tarbes students was to sell them on the Leboncoin classified ads website. They explained to the police that they had acted in order to earn money due to financial difficulties.
Traffic discovered while braving curfew by bike
It was on the night of Tuesday 25 May that the trafficking of two students from Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées) came to light. That night, the two students decided to break the curfew and were stopped by the Tarbes police while cycling. The police questioned them and soon realised, when the two students struggled to explain, that the two bicycles did not belong to them.
The bikes were then confiscated by police officers and taken to the police station, where they waited for the two young people to come forward with proof of ownership. The two young people were forced to walk home and turned themselves in to the police station the next day to confess to the trafficking they had been carrying out up to that point.
Bicycle thefts justified by financial difficulties
The students told police officers that this was not their first time. They allegedly stole a bike from near the Crous and then managed to sell it on the classified ads website Leboncoin in just a few minutes. They also claim that they intended to repeat the same pattern with the two bikes they had in their possession before the police intervened. Students at the National Engineering School in Tarbes (ENIT), they justified their actions by citing financial difficulties exacerbated by the health crisis.
As a result, the Tarbes police offered to return the bike they had managed to sell on Leboncoin to the victim in exchange for lenient prosecution. The two students will shortly be summoned by the police, who will decide what legal action to take. The École Nationale d'Ingénieurs in Tarbes will be trying to identify the victims of these thefts, who are the owners of the bikes seized.
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