Uber driver turned amateur detective finds bike stolen from thieves | UK News

An Uber Eats driver turned amateur detective has recovered his stolen electric bike just days after it was stolen from outside a fish and chip shop.

Father-of-two Shakeel Ahmed Khan posed as a locksmith to get his £1,250 bike back.

The 36-year-old delivery man was picking up a take-out order when a thief stole his bike in front of the restaurant.

The part-time dockworker missed the chippy, but it was too dark and the tracksuit-clad culprit had already taken off.

Although Mr Ahmed Khan immediately reported this incident to the police, he decided he could not wait for them to investigate.

“I couldn’t wait for the police to resolve the matter, I wanted this to be resolved as quickly as possible,” he said.

He still had the keys to the bike and he knew the thief would have to take him to a locksmith to get the e-bike working again.

He said: “I started by calling every repair shop and locksmith I could find (in) the city – three got a call about a lost key and one was able to give me a phone number.”

He posed as a locksmith and contacted the mobile number he was given, even giving a quote for the cost of a replacement key to be made in order to appear more legitimate.

Mr Ahmed Khan obtained an address – he thought the thief would have been the person who contacted the locksmith, but it turned out it was the person the Sheng Mi Lo electric bike was sold to.

He said the buyer told him: ‘If you give me £60 I can give it back to you, it’s your bike.’

Mr Ahmed Khan said: “I was told the thief had sold it to the man I approached for £60 – I didn’t care about the situation, I just wanted my back so I could support myself of my children.

“So I gave him £60 and got my bike back – I could finally breathe a real sigh of relief.”

A new electric bike would have cost him more than £1,000.

On why he paid to get his own stolen bike back, he said: ‘What I thought was if I get this one back for £60 it’s no big deal.’

Mr. Ahmed Khan earns more as a delivery driver in winter than in summer.

“My job as a delivery person is more profitable than my daily job (in winter). I was looking forward to spending more time on my delivery work,” he said.

After his bike was stolen on September 25, it took Mr Ahmed Khan just two days to get it back.

“This bike is like my bread and butter – it’s really important to me because it’s how I make a lot of my income.

“When I work Friday evenings and weekends, I can earn up to £100 a day, which helps me support my two children,” he said.

Mr Ahmed Khan, who obtained CCTV of the incident as part of his efforts as an amateur detective, said his wife thought he watched a lot of crime documentaries and that was why he had become an amateur detective when his bike was stolen.

The delivery person now takes extra steps to ensure their bike is secure when making deliveries. Previously, he wouldn’t lock his bike if he had to get in and out of a takeaway in less than a minute.

“Even if I go in and out, I’m going to lock it now,” he said.

Hampshire Police confirmed they launched an investigation into the stolen bike shortly before its recovery on September 27.

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