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NEWS
Case closed: stolen Ducati found!
It took 12 years, but a 996 SPS stolen from Australian Motorcycle News in 1999 has now been found – at a recycling depot in Melbourne!It’s not the most pleasant feeling when you get home from work to find three messages on the landline from the police wanting to “chat about an issue from a few years ago”.
I ticked off all the boxes: I hadn’t committed a murder since 1983; I had drifted away from the contraband scene long before that; I had never been involved in tax evasion (although a bank account in Guernsey would be nice); and I’ve never been a swinger skating on the edge of oblivion. But I am Italian and my family’s roots are in Griffith, so anything is possible.
But I was in the clear this time, because what transpired in the return phone call was something that hit me like a jackhammer – a Ducati 996 SPS press bike stolen from my St Kilda (Vic) unit in 1999 had been located at a recycling station (a ‘tip’ for the more mature readers) about 40km away.
Let me set the scene. In 1999, I was a staff journalist at Australian Motorcycle News, and we had just returned from a mega superbike comparo at McNamara Park in Mount Gambier (SA). All the bikes were stickered-up to look like the machines which had competed in that year’s Australian Superbike Championship – which was a memorable winning one for Ducati and Steve Martin.
When we returned to Melbourne, I not only garaged the 996 SPS in St Kilda, but also a Yamaha YZF-R1 – because my house was deemed ‘safe’ after a press Kawasaki ZX-7RR had been stolen, from another abode in St Kilda, a week earlier. Are you following?
So not only was the SPS stolen that fateful evening, but also the YZF-R1! The follow-up call I had to make to the AMCN editor, the late Ken Wootton, wasn’t full of unbridled joy, I can assure you.
After some initial excitement from detectives --- they were trying to break a stolen bike racquet – the case went quiet – until the call from police last week.
Apparently, some bloke saw the SPS at the Broadmeadows tip and bought what was left of it – an engine and chassis, both of which still look in immaculate condition. Project Underbelly anyone?
Unbeknownst to the buyer, he was buying stolen goods – a scenario that many innocent people find themselves in. Anyway, it kickstarted a flurry of correspondence that eventually led to the insurance company which paid out on the SPS. When asked if it wanted to take possession, the insurance company’s response was: “Leave it at the tip.”
So the story ends, after 12 years. The bike finally has a legitimate owner once again, but the scoundrels who perpetrated the crime remain at large.
And my wife is still not convinced that was the only reason the police called me.
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Written byMark Fattore
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Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
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