Video: Serial bike thief has been on the loose for nearly two months

Alleged bike thief.

Your bikes are not safe -- even inside your apartment building.

After writing about a new smartphone app designed to help cyclists retrieve stolen bikes, we heard from one Denver user whose custom-made bike was stolen in July from inside his apartment building. Turns out he's not the only victim.

That's right -- there's an alleged serial bike thief on the loose in Denver, and although police have several very clear photos of him from early July, the suspect is still at large, according to a DPD spokesman.

Here are two photos of the suspect, taken outside the apartment building where he is alleged to have snatched a handful of bikes earlier this summer.

Patrick Obando, who owns one of the stolen bikes, tells us that he was out of town over the Fourth of July holiday weekend when he heard there was some kind of "security breach" in his building, at 90 Corona Street. A week later when he went to ride his bike, he realized that it had been stolen right out of a bike storage facility in the building. The bikes in the building are locked in "bike igloos" -- mini storage structures that fit a single bike. Apparently the alleged thief was able to pry it open and steal Obando's custom-made black and red Republic bike.

And several others.

Obando says that from what he understands, the thief stole a total of eight bicycles from inside the apartment building at around 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. on July 2. A DPD spokesman tells us that at least four bikes were stolen, possibly during several separate incidents at that apartment complex. An alert sent out later in July through 9News Crime Stoppers with one of those photos describes the suspect as a twenty-something white or Hispanic man approximately five-ten tall and weighing 155 pounds.

"It's just been terrible," says Obando, 33, who custom-designed the bike online at a cost of $450. "To know that it was stolen when it was in my apartment building...that really made me upset."

And here's a weird part of the story: The bike thief apparently came back in the morning the next day, perhaps to try and steal more. An employee for the building on site snapped those clear shots of the suspect, who had a bike with him, and that's how DPD ended up with the photos. They were not, however, able to arrest the suspect.

Sam Levin

Patrick Obando.

"I'm hopeful that it will show up," says Obando, a marketing director who works at 16th Street and Stout. He's now driving in to work, and will do so until the bike turns up or he decides to buy a new one.

"It's a nine-minute bike ride versus a 25-minute car ride," he says.

Continue reading to learn more about the incident at 90 Corona Street and another possibly related mass bike theft -- and to watch a video of the thief.