Twelve racing bicycles, nearly 200,000 euros in stolen equipment, and less than two days to find them. The theft suffered by Unibet Rose Rockets while traveling to Spain ended well thanks to a small AirTag that one of its mechanics had hidden inside his toolbox.
An AirTag leads to 12 stolen bicycles from Unibet Rose Rockets
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The theft of bicycles from professional teams has become a recurring problem in cycling, and Unibet Rose Rockets has just been involved in one of the most striking cases. Not so much for the theft itself, but for its outcome.
The team was traveling to Spain to compete in the Ordiziako Klasikoa and the Clásica Castilla y León when they spent the night in the Poitiers area, France. On the morning of July 23, after a seemingly normal night, staff members discovered that someone had first entered one of their vehicles and then the truck where they transported the bicycles.
The thieves had taken 12 racing bicycles, as well as wheels, helmets, tools, and other team equipment. An operation whose total value was around 200,000 euros and which left the team without the necessary equipment to compete in Spain.
The theft forced an emergency plan to be activated immediately. The riders were notified to bring their training bicycles, and team personnel began traveling from the Netherlands with spare bicycles. The goal was to ensure that the cyclists could start both Spanish races, even if it was with equipment prepared at the last minute.
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But mechanic Wade Schultz had done something that would end up changing everything.
He had hidden an Apple AirTag inside his toolbox. And the thieves had also taken the box.
Shortly after, the device began transmitting its location near a golf course in Poitiers, very close to where the team had slept.
The French police followed that lead and initially located a vehicle containing various equipment, including wheels and helmets. It was a first confirmation that the AirTag was tracking the right trail, although the bicycles had not yet appeared.
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The investigation continued to a building in Poitiers. The 12 bicycles were inside an apartment located on the 12th floor and had barely suffered any damage and had never left the city. The police also made arrests related to the case.
“Suddenly we saw that it started to move. Then we had a trail. That was our salvation. Without that AirTag, we would never have recovered the equipment,” Bas Tietema later explained to the Dutch media AD.
A detail suggests it was not a random theft
The recovery also left another particularly striking clue. Among the located equipment was a toolbox belonging to Soudal Quick-Step.
For Tietema, this detail raises the possibility that behind the theft were people who had previously attacked other professional teams.
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“What I wonder is whether this is organized crime. Obviously, this was not a stroke of luck. They also found a toolbox from Soudal Quick-Step there, so that indicates it was not something random,” he explained to AD.
There is another element that fuels that suspicion. Stealing 12 professional bicycles from a truck is not exactly easy. You have to locate the vehicle, access it, free the bicycles from their securing systems, and have enough capacity to transport them without drawing attention.
Tietema wonders precisely how the thieves could know where the team's truck was: “How do they know where a vehicle like that is parked? Are they watching the highways? Are they looking around hotels?”
Moreover, selling this type of bicycle is not easy either. They are very recognizable models, with specific team decorations and identification numbers, so placing them directly on second-hand platforms could allow them to be located quickly.
The case becomes even more relevant due to the numerous equipment thefts that professional cycling has suffered in recent years. Teams try to protect their trucks by physically blocking the doors, seeking secure parking, and installing alarms, but thieves have repeatedly shown themselves capable of overcoming these measures.
Tietema himself acknowledges that it is practically impossible to completely eliminate the risk. A team can reinforce its vehicles, but deploying private security to all races is complicated, especially when a structure competes simultaneously in several locations.
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