Bike Story

I live in Chorlton, Manchester. I popped into a local newsagent to get a paper one day, parking my cycle outside the shop, neglecting to lock it up as it was only a 30 second trip. On returning the bike had gone. I looked around then borrowed a friend's bike for a better search, to no avail. I went home and called the police to report the theft. They wanted the frame number, which I hadn't recorded, so I rang the bike shop where the bike was purchased, 4 miles away in Rusholme, to see if they had the detail. The guy in the shop went upstairs to check in the office filing cabinet, glanced out of the window and saw a few lads on the estate across the road with a bike he though was my Trek - he had sold it to me a few month's earlier and it was a new model, so quite rare. On investigating he identified it as it had the shop's sticker on the frame. He challenged the lads and knew their story of just having bought it was a lie. They panicked and he retrieved it. I got it back to my astonishment, and his! The panniers and contents had gone, but the bike was intact. How unlikely is that?