Strutz Strutz:
Yeah, I saw this on the news last night. Very unfortunate for the bike's owner who depends on it for his freedom.
If anything that custom bike should be easy to spot if someone (either the thief or whoever they sell it to) actually uses it.
It's not a custom built bike in the sense that the frame is built to custom specs (that gets expensive), just that it has a lot of optional features.
There's a number of trikes in Vancouver, so the bike probably wouldn't stand out except to people who know what they are looking for. Might also be stripped for parts and sold that way.
Even if it's spotted, there's the problem of getting it back. Had a guy from Port Coquitlam (I think) whose bike was stolen in Vancouver. He found the bike being sold on Craig's list, but the Vancouver cops said he had to deal with the PoCo RCMP, the horsemen told him he had to deal with Vancouver. The guy finally went to the seller himself and just threatened him with calling the cops and got it back. Shows how interested the cops are in helping out.