The Landes gendarmes remind us that “too good a deal is often a bad deal”. In Capbreton, a man was sanctioned this Monday for concealment of theft after purchasing an electric bike. According to him, he met an individual in the street, between Hossegor and Capbreton in October, who offered him electric bikes for sale. Interested in one of them, he paid 200 euros for a model that was actually worth 2,500. “What should have alerted the buyer“, explains the commander of the Dax departmental gendarmerie company, Simon Cahour.
Worse still, the seller asked the buyer to retrieve the bike from a thicket, a bush where it was hidden in Hossegor. Without asking any questions, the buyer took his car, an Audi A6, and loaded the bike into his trunk. This load was captured by city surveillance cameras, allowing authorities to identify the buyer. The latter, a man in his fifties, with no history, was placed in police custody and accepted the sanction pronounced by the Dax public prosecutor's office to avoid being prosecuted, because the conditions of the sale should have alerted him to the suspicious nature of the affair.
The sanction, imposed as an alternative to prosecution, includes a fine of 1,000 euros, paid to an association as part of a “citizen contribution”, as well as confiscation of the car used to transport the bicycle“for the means used to commit the offense“. This Audi A6, a high-end sedan worth 60,000 euros new, was therefore seized by the courts.
As part of this court decision “offensive“to make an impression, the Landes gendarmerie would like to remind you of the rules to follow when making a purchase: the price must be consistent with the value of the object, and the terms of the transaction must not arouse suspicion. In the event of a doubtful proposal, it is advisable to contact the local gendarmerie brigade or call 17.
