rockm

For bonsai purposes, this tree is not that great. That swelling where all the branches originate will continue to swell unless you undertake considerable thinning and dramatic carving. The trunk is pretty uninteresting and unremarkable. It wasn't worth stealing.

Although your heart is the in the right place, your actions are not. Stealing is stealing, even if there is a beauracracy to deal with. Following your heart sometimes leads to some very bad decisions.

Here in the U.S. stealing landscape material has become a growing nuisance crime, as home site developers rip out plants from municipal and even private sites with no permission to replant those trees on new home sites. Police here are aware of such thefts and will arrest people for it.

Such actions are costly for those who plant the trees to begin with. The trees--even if they're mistreated or you think they're in trouble--were paid for by someone. Here in the US landscaping on municipal sites is paid for by taxpayers. The replacement costs for stolen plants from those locations are bourne by taxpayers. It's not up to you to decide what's best for someone else's property.