This approach has successfully been used against car thieves, but it’s controversial (rightly or not, some people consider it entrapment) https://en.m.wikipedia

This approach has successfully been used against car thieves, but it’s controversial (rightly or not, some people consider it entrapment) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_car https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_car Something like Lojack but for bikes would be another way to go, if a city would commit to pursuing thefts of bikes with GPS trackers (with the additional incentive that it would likely lead to more recoveries).