Massive theft at Dallas card show, Nearly 2 Million Dollars worth of cards stolen

[gregndodgers]

Originally Posted by Musashi

+1

From the video evidence, these thieves were competent, bordering on professional. Competent/professional thieves avoid pawn shops. Speaking as a former pawn shop manager: While the exact steps and requirements vary by jurisdiction, in most cases, people selling or pawning items have to present a valid, government issued photo ID with name and address (which the shop makes a copy of and files) and get their picture taken (plus all the in-store security footage). In PA, records for all items that the store purchases or takes in on pawn are uploaded to law enforcement daily (exactly which law enforcement varies. Larger departments may actually have a pawn division which works exclusively with pawn/second hand stores. Rural areas often use the state police. Where I worked, there was a county detectives office and they got all the records)

Also, this means that at least in PA, if recovery of the items is your goal, you DO NOT WANT TO ALERT THE PAWN SHOP. If you alert the pawn shop, they won't buy or pawn it it (they legally aren't allowed to at that point), and they won't get the ID with name and address of the people who currently possess it (if you can think of a good cover story to get someone to hand over their ID and get their picture taken even though you're declining to take their items in, I'd love to hear it). You'll be no closer to getting your stuff back. If you don't alert the pawn shop, they'll buy/pawn it, law enforcement will see it on their daily report and notify the shop they're seizing the items. Police will come to the shop, which will give them the stuff, the copy of the photo ID with name and address and the photo that they took, even download store security footage if the officer feels it's necessary. Since the form people have to sign (again this may be PA specific) states that they have the legal right to dispose of the property, the pawn shop will file a complaint for theft by deception which a) adds another charge to the perps and b) at least theoretically, is how the shop recovers its money. That does suck for the shop, as court ordered restitution is slow coming, but it's the quickest way for the victim to get their items back.

Great info. So there you go. We've only learned this by asking questions. Again, the idea is to leave no stone unturned.

However, I wonder how closely the cops monitor the "daily report." I would think that stolen baseball cards are NOT high on their list of priorities. I would think it depends on jurisdiction and other factors.