{"id":90466,"date":"2021-03-23T17:31:15","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T17:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=177728"},"modified":"2021-03-23T17:31:15","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T17:31:15","slug":"russian-consulate-employee-leaves-france-after-being-questioned-in-stolen-bike-scam-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/23\/russian-consulate-employee-leaves-france-after-being-questioned-in-stolen-bike-scam-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Consulate Employee Leaves France After Being Questioned In Stolen Bike Scam"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
\n

An employee of the Russian Consulate in Strasbourg is suspected of selling dozens of stolen bicycles, French media reports said on March 22.<\/p>\n

According to the reports, a 40-year-old driver for the Russian diplomatic mission was detained for questioning on February 14 but released 24 hours later as police pursued the investigation.<\/p>\n

When police wanted to question the suspect for a second time later in February, they were informed by the consulate that he had returned to Russia for “health reasons.”<\/p>\n

Police launched the probe after an expensive electric bicycle belonging to the former deputy mayor of Strasbourg, Alain Fontanel, was stolen on a street near Strasbourg’s diplomatic quarter.<\/p>\n

Fontanel turned to police after he saw his bike offered for sale on the Leboncoin website several days later.<\/p>\n

Police contacted the seller who agreed to sell the bike at a site just next to the Russian consulate.<\/p>\n

The man had a fake receipt of purchase with a Russian consulate stamp along with Fontanel’s bike identified by its serial number later, and three other bikes.<\/p>\n

Police found out later that some 300 ads for high-quality bikes had been posted on the Leboncoin site since January 2020, representing a potential value of up to 100,000 euros ($120,000).<\/p>\n

The investigation continues as prosecutors weigh whether to proceed with a trial even if the suspect remains out of reach.<\/p>\n

Based on reporting by AFP and France Bleu<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An employee of the Russian Consulate in Strasbourg is suspected of selling dozens of stolen bicycles, French media reports said on March 22. According to the reports, a\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,23,24,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90467,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90466\/revisions\/90467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}