Under recent scrutiny from Prince George's County police who said pawnshops have become a haven for profiting from stolen goods, an Oxon Hill pawnbroker defends his second-generation, family-owned business as an asset to both the community and police.
"We work so closely with the police department," said Michael Marin Cohen, owner of the Ten Dollar Pawnbrokers. "We do our best to not take in stolen goods."
While pawnshops have had a poor reputation in the community for the last several decades, Cohen said the recent focus by media and police on pawnshop owners who allegedly cooperate with criminals to sell stolen items has stagnated the fight to better community perceptions of the stores.
"I think it's frustrating that we have been working so hard against the reputation of pawnshops," he said.
On July 28, Prince George's County police raided a Cheverly pawnshop, the Maryland Computer Exchange, seizing a truck full of goods — still in their packages — that police believe may have been stolen.
The raid was the first action taken by the county's Pawn Shop Task Force, which was established in July by Police Chief Roberto Hylton to crack down on "boosting," the selling of commercially stolen goods by second-hand retailers. Charges have not been filed against the pawnshop owner.
Maj. Robert Liberati, who is heading the task force, said Prince George's has about 30 licensed pawnshops, significantly more than every other jurisdiction in Maryland, with the exception of Baltimore city, and he estimates that the majority of county pawnshops knowingly take in stolen items.
Some pawnshops do reject items they believe to be stolen and report all items they take in to police, as they are legally required to, he said.
But police doing routine inspections have found the majority of county pawnshops selling unopened boxes of items, including drills, faucets, printer cartridges, car headlights and other products frequently reported by manufacturers and retailers as stolen, Liberati said.
The items are being sold in the shops for cents on the dollar, and Liberati estimates the annual economic loss to boosting as in the millions.
"We have to put an end to it one way or another," he said. "We're trying to stop this open market for stolen goods."
Cohen, 35, said he sees the family pawnshop, which he bought from his father two years ago, as a business helpful to both residents looking for income and police looking for thieves.
"There are going to be situations where people are going to try to sell you stolen goods," he said. "But we are the last stop for police to find the criminals."
If pawnshop employees suspect that merchandise is stolen, it must be turned over to police along with the identity of the seller.
"If the goods aren't sold to a pawnshop they are sold on a street," which would make tracking the thieves more difficult, Cohen said.
Richard Sussman, president of the Maryland Pawnbrokers Association, said there may be a few dishonest brokers in the industry, but most of the shop owners he works with are cooperative with police.
Thieves who sell goods to pawnshops have always been a problem, Sussman said, but the amount of stolen property has always been "extremely low" because thieves know the strict regulations pawnshops face.
Sussman, who owns Northwestern Loan and Pawnbroker in Baltimore, said that even as the economy dips, he has not seen an upturn in stolen property.
"The problem is being portrayed as a pawnshop problem, when it is a much larger problem," Sussman said. "Our identity has become the scapegoat."
Cohen said pawnshops and their employees are often targeted, due to the availability of cash and high-priced items, such as jewelry in the stores. While the store has never been robbed in its two decades of existence, Cohen said the thought is always in the back of his mind.
"People know that we have money," he said. "We're like a bank."
Pawnshop employees can be vulnerable to thieves also, as Ten Dollar Pawnbrokers employee William Carroll recently found out.
Carroll, 31, of Accokeek said he was robbed July 22 after three men followed him home from work.
After parking his car at his Trunnel Lane home, Carroll said three masked men — at least one of whom was armed — approached him and asked for his backpack, which contained $3,500 worth of jewelry and personal credit cards.
Evan Baxter, a spokesman for the Prince George's County Police Department, confirmed Carroll's story and said a police report had been filed on the night of July 22.
E-mail Megan McKeever at mmckeever@gazette.net.
