Inside Look at Motor Vehicle Trafficking Case

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According to Chief Brad Wentlandt, the case began back in July 2010 when detective Jim Bruno began investigating four sport bike thefts from Greenfield apartment complex parking lots.

Greenfield detectives were aware of a similar ring that had been taken down by Waukesha detectives in 2009 and started looking at some of the individuals involved at that time.

Greenfield detectives also received information from a local locksmith that various individuals had been coming to the business to have motorcycle ignition cylinders re-keyed. One of those individuals had been implicated in the 2009 cases.

From there, Greenfield detectives began covert surveillance of some of the suspects, and on Oct. 9, 2010, detective Brent Hart followed suspect Keith Grady, a 39-year-old Milwaukee man among the four indicted Tuesday, to a storage unit on the northwest side of Milwaukee where Hart observed the Grady allegedly “chopping up” motorcycles.

Subsequent investigation and search warrants led to the recovery of more than a dozen stolen motorcycles stolen from Greenfield, Oak Creek and Milwaukee. According to Wentlandt, hundreds of hours of follow-up and interviews followed, leading to the federal charges handed down earlier this week.

Returning the stolen bikes to their owners has not been easy, Wentlandt said. The suspects in this case would allegedly steal a motorcycle, purchase a new frame and then transfer the stolen parts to create a new bike to be sold.

This created problems in returning the bikes to their owners because the buyer of the "new" bike had been duped into purchasing a stolen motorcycle, and the original owner didn’t actually own the "new" motorcycle that had been re-registered with the Department of Transportation.