VIRGINIA BEACH
Target No. 3 this day was a pawn shop on Indian River Road.
"I'm going in," the voice of an undercover police officer crackled over surveillance equipment monitored by a detective in an unmarked minivan.
The officer, armed with a Sony PlayStation 2, the video games "Shrek 2" and "NBA Live 06," a pair of walkie-talkies and a camcorder, ducked into the store.
His job: Get the pawn shop clerk to buy the stuff and then check to see whether the shop reported the transaction properly to police.
Dubbed Operation Truth or Consequences, Virginia Beach police were wrapping up a five-month project to see how well pawn shops and secondhand stores obey laws that require them to tell police every day what they bought.
If the shop does things right, that Nintendo Wii stolen from your friend's apartment and pawned just might be recovered.
During the operation, Beach police went undercover to 28 pawn shops and secondhand stores.
Ten shops didn't buy the bait. Of the 18 that did, 12 failed to record it all property, police said.
For example, Birdneck Pawnshop reported incorrect serial numbers for two sub-woofers they bought from undercover police. Alpha Music failed to report a used acoustic guitar the shop bought. Nathan's Lynnhaven Pawn misstated a serial and model number for a power tool. Two GameStop stores, an entertainment software retailer that also buys used games, were cited for failure to record game names and for not filing on time.
The Class 4 misdemeanors can carry a $250 fine.
Pawn shops don't have to record whom they sell things to. They are required to report to police daily the name, address and date of birth of people from whom they buy stuff. The report also includes a description of the items they buy, including serial numbers and model names.
That information is compared to items that have been reported as stolen.
Sloppy record keeping, say, a transposed number or a late report, and the system breaks down, police said.
"If one digit is off, it doesn't work," said Detective Bob Wilson, who was listening from the unmarked van Tuesday to the under-cover officer work. "Typos can mess us up. And if they sit on the reports for two or three days, the stuff is sold."
Distinguishing serial numbers from part numbers or manufacturer's numbers can be difficult, and the numbers can be hard to read, said Mitchell Dunbar, owner of Superior Pawn on Indian River Road, one of the stores visited by the undercover officer on Tuesday.
"Some of these electronics have so many numbers on them that you don't know what to put down. So you pick the number you think is right," he said. "You do the best you can. A five looks like an eight. A five looks like a three. They are poorly done."
Dunbar's clerk bought the Sony PlayStation 2, the video games "Shrek 2" and "NBA Live 06" and a pair of walkie-talkies. The clerk passed on a camcorder.
When police got the report, the serial numbers on the walkie-
talkies were incomplete.
Dunbar said it was likely an honest mistake. He said his employee gave police the first seven of the 11 digits in the walkie talkies' serial number. He missed the four that followed a space.
"I don't see it as any more than a clerical error," Dunbar said.
Aaron Applegate, (757) 222-5122, aaron.applegate@pilotonline.com
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What a waste!
I'm outraged that my hard earned tax dollars are paying for this wasteful use of time and resources by the VBPD. It's a good thing that they are a government agency because in the private sector someone would have a lot of explaining to do and most likely he or she would be looking for a new job. What a relief to know they have charged all these hard criminals! I feel much safer!
what a scam
i guarantee you the cops don't check all these serial numbers the same day they get the reports. the real fools are we, the taxpayers, who fall for this false sense of security that the cops are watching out for our stolen items the same day they are sold to a pawn shop. what a waste of time on a pawn shop's part. also, 99.9% of these items are unregistered with anyone. do you think some kid is going to register a pair of speakers by serial number with the manufacturer? and do you think the coips are going to call every manufacturer for every pair of speakers sold to pawn shops every day, just to see if they might be stolen? and do you think the manufacturers are going to give out that information over the phone to someone claiming to be a cop? if you do, you're living in the same fantasy world that the cops want youi to believe in. i repeat, what a scam! how about fighting some real crime for a change??
Wow - so this means our city
Wow - so this means our city is safe and sound - people robbing banks and holding up armored cars have all been caught (can you hear the sarcasm!), not to mention on the teens in gangs have been dealt with and the city is making national marks! Good grief, since when do we need to worry so much about pawn shops and not focus on the real crimes. Yes, stolen stuff does end up there, but if you can't prove its yours then it really doesn't matter if you knew the wicked scratch your dog left on your $400 stereo and your description matches the one in the store - without a serial number its just not going to happen. And if you can stop people from breaking into others homes and clean up the streets then you really would have no real business dealing with the pawn shops. Anyways, IMHO pawn shops should be illegal - talk about ripping off people, you would have better luck selling your items on craigslist and just letting them go then pay the enormous rates from a pawn shop - just like pay day loans. Just something else to keep the poor in poverty.
Check out antique shops
Back door transactions of antique shops happen every day. They too are supposed to report their purchases to the police, but 99% of them don't. Gold is a hot item being bought by antique dealers.
RE: ebay
Police and the victims of stolen merchandise do search ebay, and I'm willing to bet there is no such thing as 25% of stolen goods on ebay. I sell on ebay, and find your statement offensive. Yes, some stolen items have been found on ebay, but it's a mear drop in the bucket to the millions of items listed.
Hmm
One thing I've seen mentioned is soldering razor blades around the rear of your car stereo deck. Just remember they are there when you go to remove it! I had some cheap 6x9 speakers in boxes stolen from a vehicle of mine. The expensive part was replacing the window. All I could think about is putting a new set with a special pull pin on a wire so when the new ones are removed, after 48 hours the speaker boxes burst into flames. Then watch the news to see where they ended up. But I suppose this is illegal, and just made the new ones removable easily (I remove them every time I'm done using the vehicle).
greed
i had a friends son who had a drug problem,he stole just about everything he could get his hands on from their house and took it to the same pawn shop,the items were rings electronics,lawn mowers,weed eaters,pressure washers,coin collection,vacuum cleaner,womens hand bags.the parents went to this pawn shop after the child finally told them where he had pawned everything,and tried to get back the items.because the child (22yr old)couldn't remember where the pawn tickets were or that he wasn't even sure that he pawned the items at that shop they were refused trying to buy back the items at the pawned price,and they identified some of them that were on display for sale.they were told that they would need to make a police report and an investigation would be done to recover any items.these parents love their child and did not want to have him arrested in a lot of ways i can understand that i have children also and they do make a lot of bad mistakes and choices,but don't you think someone in that shop might have thought these items could be stolen and contacted the police.greed greed greed.
I had a similar event with the police
after getting a stereo stolen from my car, the cop told me that is what I get for having a good stereo in there ($200??? good???) Another time I had a bike stolen and the cop asked me everything from where I work, how long I worked there, where did I live last and about 30 minutes worth of other useless questions. He was about to hang up the phone and I asked him if he wanted the serial number, he said "oh, yeah, I guess that would be helpful."
Pawn shops? NO! Theif-Bay is the way to go!
Stolen stuff gets sold on Ebay--they need to require the sellers to list the serial numbers into a national database--but of course they don't. The sellers sell and the buyers don't care. Ebay is the biggest fence on the planet--I'd estimate that at least 25% of their merchandise is stolen. I'd never take stolen stuff to a pawn shop--I'd get rid of it on Ebay and never get caught!
reality check
We hear very VERY little of the crimes committed around us on a daily basis. The shear volume is overwhelming for any police force. The efforts by VBPD are commendable. If the shops perform their obligated tasks it only aids the police in detering these crimes, catching criminals, and getting your belongings back to you. How many of us actually record this information to help identify the proper ownership in the event of theft? The police are not ignoring your plight after a theft. The reality is that the apprehension of the thief is little or none. Petty crimes are committed by petty criminals. The trail left is rarely more than a fingerprint. Unfortunately, the likelihood of a print match is little or none. The police know this. As frustrating as it may seem to the victim the police do an admirable job. I had a few thousand dollars of welding equipment stolen. There were no prints left (gloves?). The Portsmouth police admitted that it was no mere theft of convenience and I'd not likely ever see my things back. So true. It is what it is sometimes....
You're wrong...this is a big deal...
There's not much point in stealing stuff if it is hard to sell or the risk of being caught is high. That is WHY this is a big deal.
Our car was broken into and the stereo equipment stolen. I had the serial numbers. I was even advised that the equipment had turned up on a pawn shop report. But, the detectives never "had time" to go check it out and the thief was never caught.
You don't think the thieves aren't aware that their crimes are low on the totem pole? You don't think that the pawn shops aren't aware that there's a good chance they won't get caught? Right.
Pawn Shop Sting
Some of the serial number discrepancies may have been honest mistakes. They should have brought in a car stereo with the wires cut off & a piece of dashboard still attached..That would have caught the blatant "hot" dealers.....I admit there is a chance I may be confusing them with the crack dealer in this scenario. lol
Waste?
If you think that this is a waste of time and/or money then you watch too much TV. Real police work is more than what you see in a 30-minute episode of COPS. I applaud the VBPD and other local agencies for fighting ALL crime, not just the obvious and high-profile.
jmo
It's not just vabeach
It happens all around Hampton Roads as well as other states and it's not just pawn shops. The police should check out the back door purchases of antique shops in the area, who constantly purchase stolen goods.
haha
The pawn shops can't read a serial number? Yea right. They know what's up. They know that messing up the number will cause it not to be found in a database. Seriously, on most major electronics it is NOT hard to read the serial number. They know what's up. Pawn shops are dead anyways, if you're selling your own stuff you go to Craigslist or feeBay.
What a waste of time
I guess the over-staffed VBPD needs to find something for all the officers and detectives to do. Five months??? Are they kidding? I suppose there are only so many parking lots for all the cruisers to hang out in parked sometimes 4 and 5 deep just shooting the breeze, so they need to find something for the ones that can't get to the coffee and donut party to do.
If my stuff got stolen, I wouldn't even bother with contacting the VBPD for anything more than getting a report to file with my insurance company. Why? I had a similar experience with the VBPD as the author of the first post minus the "hanging with the wrong crowd" statement. They just said they don't spend much time working on stolen goods because the success rate for recovery is so low.
If this is a high priority (hassling pawn shops on a 5 month sting) we need either fewer cops or more crime. Which makes more sense with a $1.7 billion budget passed by Council???
A Little Bit Too Late
About 4 years ago I had a Sony CD player and Bose speakers taken from my home when I was out of town. I knew who stole them and what pawn shop they were taken to. I reported the incident to the VBPD second precinct. The officer and the detective did nothing at all and told me it was my fault as I was "hanging out" with the wrong people. Needless to say I never got my cd player or my speakers back. Another "great" job by VBPD!