User blog comment:Itachou/The Missing Link overview/@comment-83.84.227.208-20110918125128/@comment-1221453-20110920125924

Even if anyone can steal mech-augs of anyone (saw with the Harvesters), mechanical augmentations are all controlled by a brain chip called neural hub and all mechanically augmented individuals must possess a neural hub in order to use their mech-augs.

I think that Belltower just need to disable it temporarily and the target could no longer use their mechanical augmentations, although he still has them.