Sekar, 47, a loadman working in the Kothavalchavadi market, was arrested for stealing bicycles.
He was remanded and 50 bicycles were recovered from him.
Sekar had been stealing bicycles during the evenings since the 1990s and did not lay his hand on anything else.
He mainly targeted bicycles of school students and those parked on the road, police said.
“It was difficult to catch him as he could mingle with the crowd after stealing a cycle. He would become invisible. He used to take the stolen bicycle to his house and repaint it so its original owners couldn’t identify it,” a police officer said.
He sold the stolen cycles, even if they were new, for ₹500 each. “He used to sell these cycles to gullible loadmen who rode long distances on the bus,” the police officer said.
A police team got a tip a few days ago that a man was making suspicious inquiries at bicycle shops on Godown Street and Audiappa Street. “We nabbed him and during interrogation, he confessed to the crime,” the officer said.