This was my logic as well. Bike got taken off from the front of a busy shopping centre, and nobody had bothered to get involved.

And here we arrive to the point of the original post. Value of the bike vs. Risk involved in retrieving it. A POS bike with a moderately good lock is far less likely to get stolen than a Canyon 7K e-bike with a lock that you can saw through in 3-4 minutes with a Li-ion battery powered angle grinder.

I bought an e-bike worth a long penny and an u-lock to match, and the bike got stolen from the front of a busy shopping centre by guys in a van using portable angle grinders. Conveniently the security cameras were not in operation due to a system malfunction. I was inside the centre for about 10 minutes, so a real bummer. Thankfully I had also taken an anti-theft insurance that covered the out of pocket cost of my insurance, so mostly this was an annoyance, but also a valuable lesson.

In Finland, during winter, we enjoy making wide openings into an icy lake near the shore, and go swimming in it. Best translation I can find is ice swimming. This is usually paired with a piping hot sauna, and you alternate between the 80-100 celcius hot room and taking dips in the ice water. If no lake/similar body of water is available, rolling around naked in snow is also a valid option.