That's good work spreading it about to publicise it, lucky someone was on there ball to spot it.
Sometimes that method is used to check for trackers etc, take it and put it somewhere not covered by cctv, then wait to see if it goes "cold" before then collecting it. Trys to avoid getting caught.
Another flip like that we had on a factory unit, they smashed to alarm off the building with a scaffold pole, somebody responded by visit to site, checked around and found no intrusion, secured building couldn't reset alarm as fault indicated, then broke in later. Police said they probably timed response to alarm time as well to see how long they had if they triggered alarm again.