The city's police sift through 40,000 pawn-shop transactions each year looking for items like bikes, tools, electronics and guns that may have been stolen and pawned for quick cash. Those pawn-shop sales slips spawn about 50 investigations each year. For a city our size, it's a significant amount of work,'' Detective Sgt. Gary Toldness said. Pawn shops now are required to see identification from people selling items.
Sellers also sign a form, pledging they own the item they are pawning.
But if someone sells a stolen item, identification and a signature are simply not enough to quickly track the seller. And if the seller was using a fake or stolen license, they become that much more difficult to locate. It would have been a quick case to solve if the fingerprint law had been in effect. Without a doubt,'' Messina said. Mayor Sparks said.