GTA Arrest Couple Selling $$$$$ Stolen Items on eBay

[amberwoodottawa]

I caught the tale end of a new cast tonight about the Peel police (I think it was Peel) arresting several people today involved in theft and selling the stolen goods on eBay.

Apparently the lead guy was a truck driver and was stealing off the trucks for some time. A girl (20 something) was the eBay front holding the eBay id and selling all the stolen goods on eBay.

I didnt hear how much they had taken but it had been going on for some time and it was enough to give them a $600,000 house to live in with all sorts of other luxuries.

The lead crook, an Oriental, told his boss that he inherited money from rich relatives living in Europe.

It would be interesting to learn of the eBay id used to see the items and the volume. I assumed they have been shut down by eBay by now.

I wonder if the police will now go after all the people who received stolen property and demand it be returned?

Anyone have more updates on this?

Malcolm

[treasure-pot]

Malcolm, they were a couple redirecting goods taken from Pearson. He did the theiving and she did the fencing through eBay. It was estimated that they had consumated several thousand deals including everything from clothing to computers. I'm guessing that by shutting down these crooks eBay.ca now has a greater demand for sellers with computers, fashion, jewelry, cameras, etc.

I had heard nothing of heritage in the news story that I picked up but that is of very little import.

Rather than all of the goods, will the long arm of the law reach into eBay's pockets to extract all of the fees earned from the sale of stolen merchandise? Or does eBay do the right thing and contribute these to a victims fund?

Cheers!

Bill

[amberwoodottawa]

Update
$6 million is what was recovered. RCMP seized $3.5 million in stolen goods, $1.3 million cash, gold bricks and a $600,000 home.

Proceeds from the cash, gold, $750,000 in unclaimed goods and the $600,000 home will all go to the police to help in their fight against crime.

They did about $1,000 per day in sales on eBay.

Malcolm

[aa-surplus]

Does anyone know what the user ID was???

[phoebescollectables]

No word on the selling ID but here are a few stories.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3461069.stm

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1075936210343&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1075913478465_5/?hub=Canada

[amberwoodottawa]

It makes you wonder just how many items sold on eBay are stolen. Ideally our Canadian pawn shops are required to take the id of the people pawning or selling them goods, check serial numbers with lists of stolen items and hold the goods for a certain period before they in turn can sell them (I believe 45 days). Selling on eBay however removes that process.

It reminds me of a recent thread where someone overheard som late teens talking at a Staples of how their eBay accounts were shut down, how they would advertise items and not ship. It would be punks like that who would steal things and sell them on eBay.

It sure makes it difficult to compete with people selling things on eBay that cost them nothing for, where it is all straight profit (actually it is profit, but it is not straight).

I would still like to see their history of what they sold by finding out their user id. I wonder if everything has been removed by eBay on them.

Malcolm

[whoscloset]

I have an account with Hasbro and was selling some popular toys during the Christmas season. Problem was I couldn't compete with the seller's whose product obviously walked out the back door of some warehouse. It's pretty blatent when your "Buy it Now" price is only half the regular wholesale cost!

Thanks to the crooks I've decided to get out of the toy business. You can't make any money selling new, more common product on eBay even if you are able to beat the prices found in the regular marketplace. Way to many seller's are posting these products at a price that just can not be legitimate.

Monique

[amberwoodottawa]

Monique
What you need to do is source a manufacturer of toys where you are not paying the mark-up for the name. Good quality, Cdn or Interntl saftey standards' approved, but at a cost you can compete with the name branded stuff sold even by the crooks.

You might even be able to start your own line with your own branded name on the toys. Some manufacturers will do that for a relatively small order if their cost is not too great.

Malcolm

[mahsauction]

phoebescollectables thanks for posting the news links. Very interesting. Hard to imagine how many people and companies have lost their goods because of these crooks.

[systemagic]

Re. Pawn Shops

I sat on a local NPO board with a police officer who told me that Pawn Shops are basically legalized fences. While they do what they must to comply with the law, and post signs in their store to advertise their respectability, they won't turn down repeated consumer electronics being brought in by the same person daily and, once they achieve a certain size, will even have a forge and goldsmith working in the back in order to refashion gold jewellery. (I've often thought that surveillance of these establishments would lead to perpetrators). I refuse to shop at pawn shops for this reason.

The truth is that wether EBay, Pawn Shops, Flea Markets, etc. there are compromising operators to be found everywhere. All we can to, to the extend that we can, is rage against the fading of the light.

Marty

[acurael]

A very similar story appeared here just a little while back:

http://www.canada.com/regina/story.asp?id=B4299ECF-F191-436E-8570-E1D8B2901C66

Former school teacher/principal turned ebay fence to the tune of 600K.


And in the same vein of ebay realted fraud:

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/01/29/328396.html

This last one's personal because the little bugger sent me a fake money order and I had a hand in bringing him down!

Wade

[mahsauction]

Wade, did you notice that the money order was fake and turned it into the police or did you deposit it and it was rejected by the bank? How good was the forgery?

[acurael]

The forgery looked very good - had a water mark and everything. When compared to a real one, visually the only thing missing was a perforation on one side.

The routing/serial numbers didn't match like they should either, but an average person might not have noticed (I used to work for CIBC...)

It also felt wrong - a bit too thick.

The biggest suspicious thing was the amount... it was for 25% extra and wanted the item sent by mail to a po box - this despite the fact our auctions clearly dictate UPS.

I then proceeded to bait him and got as much info as I could before passing it along to the bank and police.

There were some sellers that got taken, and some that were already aware of the fake, and some that myself and a few others notified and possibly saved.