Video: The Risky Business Behind Pawn Shops

ABERDEEN, Miss. (WCBI) – High-risk. That’s how one local pawn shop owner describes the business.

The risk is knowing if you’re buying stolen items or not from pawners.

Earlier this week, around $25,000 dollars worth of stolen merchandise was recovered from a pawn shop in Amory, leading to a major investigation by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department.

Situations like the one in Amory, could land pawn shop customers and owners in some serious legal trouble.

“Pawn shops are in the business of making money, and it does not matter how they make it, they just want to make the money,” says Aberdeen Police Chief Henry Randle.

The trick lies in making that money without breaking the law. Chief Randle says the first rule of business is just using common sense.

“It’s kind of ironic if a person comes from Lee County or Tupelo, Mississippi, all the way down to Monroe County, and surpasses all of the other pawn shops up there, something may be a little fishy with that.”

B & M Pawn Shop owner Richard Luker, uses a system of questions to get an idea if the item is stolen or not, but he says there’s no fool proof way of knowing.

“One of my favorite questions is, demonstrate to me how it works. If they don’t know nothing about the tool, nothing about the electronics, nothing about the history of it, then how do they own it? How have they been operating it and know nothing about it?”

Luker keeps a log of each transaction of who pawned what, and sends that information to law enforcement each month.

“If I’ve already been notified that something is stolen in the area, and felt like it came in, I call the Aberdeen Police Department, and they will come, and we’ll check it out. Several items have been caught that way.”

Not every pawn broker is proactive like Luker, and it’s those shady ones that police are looking for.

“If they have already admitted to it, that it could be stolen, we’re looking at filing charges against both of them, but normally pawn shops are not going to ask if it’s stolen. They’re going to ask if it’s yours, and nine times out of ten, that person is going to say yeah,” says Randle.

The shops willing to look the other way, usually wind up losing money in the long run.

“Then, your local law enforcement agency goes to the pawn shop and they recover that item, well now, the pawn shop has to go and press charges on the person that actually pawned it; so now we’re looking at what they call restitution. You may get your money back in a timely fashion, or you may not get it back in a timely fashion,” says Randle.

The owners of the Gold Connection Pawn Shop in Amory have not been charged with anything.