Pocono News Section

I-Team Undercover: Selling Jewelry in Pawn Shops

I-Team Undercover: Selling Jewelry in Pawn Shops - Monday, March 23, 2009 at 5:00PM EST

Reported by: Andy Mehalshick
Monday, Mar 23, 2009 @ 05:00pm EST
And now an I-Team exclusive. It deals with preventing burglaries and recovering stolen items. As the economy struggles, police around the area say they've seen an increase in break-ins.

The bad guys have to sell those stolen items, and in most crimes they go to places like pawn shops. But there is a law on the books, called the precious metals act. Its goal is to nab those bad guys and recover family valuables.

The I-Team went undercover and paid visits to several local stores and pawn shops to see if they are following the law. They cannot buy any items, like gold or silver, without asking for identification, like a driver's license. Then they have to give the seller a form to fill out which provides details about where they got their precious metals.

We used some old silver jewelry for our investigation. We stopped by one store in West Hazleton. On two separate occasions our undercover producer sold this man jewelry. And in both cases he took the cash and never asked for ID, nor did he give us any forms to fill out.

Luzerne County Detective Chaz Balogh watched our video. "You can see in the video it’s very apparent he doesn’t ask for a driver’s license, doesn't fill out any paperwork. He's in clear violation of the Precious Metals Law," he said.

Detective Balogh went to the same store undercover after seeing our video and receiving complaints from other businesses. He sold the man jewelry and again, Balogh says the man did not follow the law. We got there as Balogh was explaining that he now faces charges.

We tried outside to ask him a few questions but he refused. The I-Team also paid a visit to another store in Hazleton. And once again our undercover producer sold the owner some jewelry. In this case, the man, did ask for his driver’s license but did not provide any form for us to fill out.

We went back looking for answers, and he was willing to explain what happened. Store owner Bob Whiteknight said, "Actually by law all that's required we did get his signature, his information. The only thing we didn't do did not get his signature."

And again, the law has two goals. To hopefully deter crime, by reducing the number of places stolen items can be sold, and most importantly, recovering stolen items. Many of them are heirlooms.

Violators face 2 years in prison, hefty fines, and they could lose their business license.