An investigation has been launched in Italy after €250,000 worth of Pinarellos were stolen from a showroom in Treviso late last week.
19 bikes were stolen from the showroom in two separate break ins which occurred just 20 hours apart.
According to a report from La Tribuna di Treviso, in the early hours of 23 November, a van pulled up alongside the building. Several masked individuals climbed out, cut through a security fence and then forced their way into the showroom.
The report states that CCTV then captured three of the individuals removing at least 12 bikes from the showroom in the space of three minutes before Italian police arrived on the scene.
Later that day at 11pm local time, three more masked robbers were successful in a second robbery of the Pinarello store according to La Tribuna di Treviso.
While it is unclear what happened, the news outlet states that police aren’t ruling out the fact that the same robbers were involved after their success earlier that day. The security fence was cut through again - after being repaired following on from the early morning robbery - and the same security door was forced open once more.
Seven bikes worth approximately €14,000 were taken on the second occasion. While it has not yet been officially disclosed, Italian press said that all of the bikes stolen were road bikes.
The Treviso showroom also acts as an administrative office for Pinarello.
Italian police and investigators are now reviewing the surveillance footage captured of three of the suspects who broke into the showroom. Both robberies are likely to have been made by the same group due to the identical break-ins.
The group also appeared to have knowledge of where in the building the high-end bikes were stored.
It is not the first occasion that there has been a mass robbery of high-end Pinarello bicycles.
In 2021, 22 Pinarello track bikes, worth €600,000, belonging to the Italian national team were taken from a van parked outside their hotel during the UCI World Championships in Roubaix.
All of the bikes were subsequently recovered following on from a large-scale police raid in Romania. Among the stolen bikes were four gold bikes used by Filippo Ganna and his teammates during their gold medal winning team pursuit ride.
In the UK, expensive bike robberies have gained coverage recently, with one London-based club, the Regent's Park Rouleurs, suffering a spate of incidents.
