0 Comments
|
|
||
The advertisements and commercials seem to be everywhere.
Businesses offer hundreds or thousands of dollars in cash for unwanted jewelry.
But some of these companies are unlicensed and don’t ask for identification or hold onto jewelry before reselling it to make sure it wasn’t stolen, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. A.J. Rotella.
This gives crooks a way to unload stolen goods without being questioned or caught, and hurts legitimate businesses that play by the rules, he said.
“It’s absolutely everywhere,” said Thomas Bayer, owner of Abe’s Pawn Shop in Newhall.
In fact, local deputies busted one such operation last month.
Proper procedure
The Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station is on the lookout for secondhand businesses who are quick to take in jewelry without any question and any regard for whether the gold rings, watches and necklaces are stolen.
Secondhand businesses are required to be licensed and have to ask customers for a form of identification, whether it’s a driver’s license or passport, when trying to sell their goods, Rotella said. Customers are required to give a signature and fingerprint.
Businesses must take down a description of the item and report it to local police so authorities can check it against stolen merchandise.
The merchandise is held for 30 days and if nothing suspicious is reported, then the items can be sold.
If authorities find something suspicious with the merchandise, it can be held for 90 days to allow for more investigation.
“It’s in black and white of what the law requires,” Rotella said. “This is to protect the welfare of the community.”
But as the number of gold businesses increases, some business owners are breaking the law and not following procedure.
“It creates an opportunity for the bad elements in the community to take advantage of the process,” Rotella said.
Legitimate businesses hurt
For Bayer, who has owned the local pawn shop since the ’90s, unlicensed secondhand businesses are a community concern because they are not obligated to report any of the merchandise that comes in. Plus, it’s a way for thieves to turn in stolen goods and receive money for it on the spot, Bayer said.
Once sold, the gold is often times melted down for businesses to receive money, leaving almost no chance of the stolen goods ever be recovered, Bayer said.
At the same time, illegal operations unfairly compete with businesses that follow the law, Rotella said.
“These activities take bread off of our table,” Bayer said.
The price of gold has significantly increased over the last five years. At the start of 2005, gold was worth a little more than $400 an ounce, according to the Web site Kitco. That number has nearly tripled as the current price for an ounce of gold is about $1,100. according to the site.
The response has been a significant increase in the number of “gold parties,” especially traveling businesses that visit towns across the state.
In January, Rotella went undercover to a traveling gold business that set up at a local hotel.
There he found that the business owners were not following proper procedure when taking in gold jewelry.
The three men were arrested and charged with operating a secondhand business without a county business license.
