After a 10-month-long investigation, the UW-Madison Police Department is seeking charges against two men for stealing hundreds of bicycles around the Madison area, Chief Susan Riseling said at a news conference Tuesday.
UWPD received four search warrants to recover 600 bicycles in an apartment and storage units in Madison, a bike shop in Muscoda and a farm in the city of Windsor.
Riseling said while no arrests have been made yet, UWPD is in the process of charging Duane J. Tessmer of Madison and Michael J. Bingen of Muscoda for possession of stolen property.
“They’re currently not in custody, and we will continue to work with the Dane County District Attorney’s Office to figure out exactly what the charges will be,” Riseling said.
Riseling said UWPD received an inside tip through a letter from an individual that led officers to investigate the two men.
Police officers confiscated the bicycles from the locations and started returning the bikes to their original owners by cross-checking serial numbers with a stolen bike database.
UWPD encourages all bicycle owners to record the serial number of their bicycle and contact officers if they believe their bike was stolen.
