As if things in the bike industry weren’t already hard enough, Ari Bikes is now dealing with a massive theft of inventory. An entire semi truck containing hundreds of bikes, frames, and build kits has gone missing while it was on its way from the Los Angeles area to the Ari warehouse in Utah.
According to Ari, its last known location was somewhere in Santa Clarita, CA and they believe that the truck has been unloaded somewhere in the valley with reports of bikes already on the move.
The truck reportedly contained bikes like the brand new Timp Peak ebike, the unreleased 801 dirt jumper (which was actually just brought into a bike shop by someone after the theft), the Signal Peak, and some road bikes. When asked how someone could possibly sell that many bikes on the black market, Ari Director of Product Development, Tyler Cloward put it, “It’s almost Comical. Seriously. Especially unreleased bikes from a direct to consumer brand. It’s 337 frames, build kits, and a few small parts. Just over $1.7M worth.”
Just how does one go about stealing an entire semi of bikes? Ari reports that it’s the result of a sophisticated fraud scheme, in which someone spoofed the email and security details of a well-known trucking company and pretended to be legit. After containers come in on cargo ships, the inbound containers are moved by a freight forwarder. They work with a trucking broker, that bids out the transport. A group masquerading as this real trucking brand then won the bidding process, and everything checked out, including all of the security details. The truck never made it out of LA, and was dropped off in lot in Santa Clarita where it was unloaded in less than 24 hours. Soon after, they found the driver and the truck in his lot, but the trailer already had someone else’s cargo in it. Currently, there are two different departments with the LA Sheriff working on the case, and Ari hired a Private Investigator. This is apparently a big enough issue in LA, that there is an entire division of the LA County Sheriff’s department called the Cargo CATs (Criminal Apprehension Team) devoted to recovering stolen cargo.
Ari is asking for help with their location, whether you see someone selling Ari bikes for a suspiciously low price, hear anything, etc. Ari has more product on the water, there will be a slight delay but is working with those who have products ordered.
We hope Ari can recover most of these and it doesn’t impact their business!
