Armed robbery at the Leica store

[beemermark]

Yes, eBay, CraigsList, Facebook Marketplace, etc. All extensions of the already existing pawnshops.

Don't give pawnshops a bad name. They are to keep an inventory and serial number of almost every item they take in. They cannot sell an item for some period, normally 60 or 90 days, and they give the list (required by law) to law enforcement who then check it against items reported stolen. When my Minolta CLE & lens was stolen they keep checking the lists for about 6 months. They would call me monthly an update. They also checked eBay and Craiglist listings. (and so did I). But it never showed up. I have a theory about high priced items that says the local guys looking for a few dollars to buy drugs sell it to a fence who bumps it up the food chain until enough stolen goods are accumulated to sell South of the border or even overseas. They guys that busted that SF store weren't small time hoods, you'll never see them goods anywhere in the US.

 

[MattKing]

So what’s the law on that in Canada. If a stolen item is sold it no longer is rightfully owned by the person it was stolen from?

No.
It is quite a bit more complex than that.
All of the applicable laws reflect the tension between a very old principle - protecting the rights of an innocent purchaser for value - with a desire to help make a victim whole.
There are whole big chunks of the Common Law - developed over a very long time - which are designed to protect and foster legitimate commerce, and therefore protect the rights of the innocent purchaser for value. The victim of the theft has a civil claim in conversion instead not against the item, but rather the person who stole it, as well as anyone who subsequently received it, knowing or ought to have known it was obtained by theft.
Roughly speaking, if you buy something whose ownership is generally established by possession - like a camera - and you purchased it from someone else who obtained it in a legitimate sale or innocent gift, from someone else who appeared to own it legitimately, you are likely to be able to keep it. It is the chain of innocence here, plus the value paid, that insulates the purchaser.
This doesn't apply to something (like an automobile) where ownership is all or partly confirmed by some sort of registration, where the registration scheme determines the question - usually.

 

[mshchem]

It also depends on who gets robbed.

 

[Huss]

So what’s the law on that in Canada. If a stolen item is sold it no longer is rightfully owned by the person it was stolen from?

Canada pioneered the ‘finders keepers, losers weepers’ law.

 

[MattKing]

Canada pioneered the ‘finders keepers, losers weepers’ law.

Not even close.
The older law - protecting innocent purchasers for value - came from England, and was most likely incorporated in US law at the time of your independence.
Most likely you will find examples of it still in many if not most of your state laws.

 

[DREW WILEY]

30% of my pro power tool sales over the last 30 years of my employment involved theft replacements. The average insurance quote was around 18K, but those were sometimes way higher. There were actual retail stores handling almost entirely stolen goods. Entire interstate delivery truckloads got heisted or diverted at times. All kinds of insider issues, and unquestionably more than a few cops paid to look the other direction. The Mission District of SF was infamous for stolen goods sales, still is. We got quite a few people convicted over the years, but someone else inevitably came along with the same plan. Sometimes that backfires, like when someone raids a jobsite for tools, then inadvertently tries to sell those same tools to the contractors and crew they stole them from, yet now at a different jobsite. They expected to walk away with cash, but were lucky to hobble away with just a few broken fingers and toes.

Our local camera store was almost entirely cleaned out one night, even though the alarm had gone off three hours before. Local police boast in being able to reach any location in only 3 min. But they arrived 20 min after the burglary crew already left. Hmmm..... I spent ten years trying to catch someone messing with my tool inventory at night, presuming it was an employee (we had caught them before). But it turned out to be the police sergeant in charge of that whole business neighborhood at night. He knew the alarm codes and where the security camera were, because he was supposed to. But a second set was installed he didn't know about, and that's what finally caught him red-handed. A really nice family guy too. Ya just never know.

 

[gone]

When I read the thread's title, I just assumed they were talking about those highway robbery prices at the Leica store, LOL. But you don't need a gun for that, people willing pay those prices!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

No.
It is quite a bit more complex than that.
All of the applicable laws reflect the tension between a very old principle - protecting the rights of an innocent purchaser for value - with a desire to help make a victim whole.
There are whole big chunks of the Common Law - developed over a very long time - which are designed to protect and foster legitimate commerce, and therefore protect the rights of the innocent purchaser for value. The victim of the theft has a civil claim in conversion instead not against the item, but rather the person who stole it, as well as anyone who subsequently received it, knowing or ought to have known it was obtained by theft.
Roughly speaking, if you buy something whose ownership is generally established by possession - like a camera - and you purchased it from someone else who obtained it in a legitimate sale or innocent gift, from someone else who appeared to own it legitimately, you are likely to be able to keep it. It is the chain of innocence here, plus the value paid, that insulates the purchaser.
This doesn't apply to something (like an automobile) where ownership is all or partly confirmed by some sort of registration, where the registration scheme determines the question - usually.

So the real original owner of the property gets screwed and the person who now has the stolen property gets to keep it and not have to not return it to the original owner. Eh?

That Canadian law is screwed up on my opinion.

 

[BobUK]

I found this from eight months ago.
Could it be the same naughty rascals?

Also, is Grant Street/Avenue in an enclave of camera stores in San Francisco?

Where is Charles Bronson when you need him?

 

[BrianShaw]

So the real original owner of the property gets screwed and the person who now has the stolen property gets to keep it and not have to not return it to the original owner. Eh?

That Canadian law is screwed up on my opinion.

Builds a good case to always buy insurance for valuable items, eh?

BTW, another twist that you might enjoy thinking about… what if your Leica gets stolen and recovered and identified as stolen from you, but it was insured and you were compensated by the insurance company for your loss. Who ultimately owns the recovered Leica in that case?

 

[guangong]

Yes, eBay, CraigsList, Facebook Marketplace, etc. All extensions of the already existing pawnshops.

In early 1960s a burglar stole my camera. Shortly thereafter detective told me camera was at a pawnshop and could redeem it. I asked him why I had to pay the pawn, and he replied that if he retrieved camera there was a good chance camera would get lost in police station. So, I emptied my savings account and went to redeem camera. $20 for a $400 camera. Pawn shops are not the place to get rid of easily identifiable goods.

 

[Donald Qualls]

what if your Leica gets stolen and recovered and identified as stolen from you, but it was insured and you were compensated by the insurance company for your loss. Who ultimately owns the recovered Leica in that case?

If insurance has paid out for the item, it belongs to the insurer -- who will sell it, usually at auction. Insurance auctions are a genuine thing.

Some insurers (or adjusters) will allow the pre-theft owner to buy back the item (though due to deductible it'll still cost them some money out of pocket); other insurers won't even notify the insured that the stolen item was recovered.

 

[BrianShaw]

If insurance has paid out for the item, it belongs to the insurer -- who will sell it, usually at auction. Insurance auctions are a genuine thing.

Some insurers (or adjusters) will allow the pre-theft owner to buy back the item (though due to deductible it'll still cost them some money out of pocket); other insurers won't even notify the insured that the stolen item was recovered.

BINGO

That's about the only situation involving robbery/theft/embezzlement and the like where all involved parties are really made whole.

 

[Donald Qualls]

all involved parties are really made whole.

Well, except the insurer. But then theirs is a business of odds, like a bookmaker -- they're betting you won't get stuff stolen/destroyed, you're betting you will. The odds they calculate determine how much you have to bet (per policy term) against what they agree to pay out. And they have very specialized oddsmakers called "actuaries" to determine the odds (premiums and policy limits) they offer. If they've done their work right, they still make a profit even with the usual number of payouts in a year.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The point is, you have to prove to a jury that not only specific items were stolen, but that anyone holding those, or even reselling them, had knowledge they were stolen. I've literally seen instances where individuals holding entire warehouses of hot tools got off the hook by playing dumb before a dumb jury. You need things like specific serial numbers matched on recorded receipts to the items under possession. Locally, it's amazing what the police detectives know about theft rings and their associates. But they're very reluctant to move with an arrest unless they got the culprits neck deep in poo-poo, and are 99% certain they can obtain an actual jury conviction.

In our case, grab n' run shoplifters, once they got off the property, the company parking lot, through the gate, then it was illegal to stop them. Didn't matter how many thousand of dollars they ran out with, or lack of a receipt. At that point, a police investigation was required, and that was a long long line indeed.

En-route truck heists, or missing pallets of equipment, happened at least twice a year. That's what mfg and insurance detectives were for. Never had to make a claim ourselves. Those guys did it right, and did it fast. A few phone calls, and the missing stuff turned up a week or two later, and the carrier was never trusted again. But being a major distributor, we had a lot of clout. Smaller dealers didn't, or just didn't know the ropes.

Armed robberies? Well, I remember that kind of thing more from back early on when I worked in the south end of SF. But I was a helluva lot more afraid of the security guard himself pulling a gun and doing something wild. Like many security guards who couldn't find better work, he was an ex-con, and even went around bragging what his own big heist would be someday.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Like many security guards who couldn't find better work, he was an ex-con,

Good grief, you must be older than me. A convicted felon has had a long row to hoe to get back the right to possess a firearm since GCA '68...

 

[DREW WILEY]

Still happens all the time. Routine. Ex cons not only get guns as security guards, but routinely patrol even licensed pot farms with AR15's. Who ya kidding? I'm not intending to get into a gun-this/gun-that debate; but there are loopholes when such persons are under the "supervision" of a police officer moonlighting by operating his own security agency. There have even been child abductions by ex-con security guards right in the place of their employment. Banks might have higher standards, but they sure seem to get robbed at lot anyway. We have friends who are police detectives, so have heard all kinds of stories that never make it to the evening news, some pretty funny, like when a local bank robber wrote the holdup note on the back of one of his own imprinted checks, and then ran off with a gunny sack full of money with a hole in the bottom of it. All the police had to do was follow the twenty dollar bills on the street.

 

[MattKing]

So the real original owner of the property gets screwed and the person who now has the stolen property gets to keep it and not have to not return it to the original owner. Eh?

That Canadian law is screwed up on my opinion.

You would prefer that the current owner be the one who lost out, despite having in good faith paid in full for the item to a legitimate seller?
And therefore throw into doubt every single retail transaction everyone ever enters into - "new" goods can be stolen too you know.
There is no solution that doesn't result in an innocent victim. So you decide where you put the risk - usually the person who has the ability to secure and insure the property.

 

[Sirius Glass]

... Jes' stirrin' the pot, to stir the pot, because one can ...

Jes' saying'​

 

[Donald Qualls]

there are loopholes

There are always loopholes. In this case, it probably comes down to the definition of "possession."

Regardless, a guy in a security position who talks about his future heist dreams probably ought to be encouraged to find another job, ideally via HR informing him his services are no longer required. Ex-con or not.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Regardless, a guy in a security position who talks about his future heist dreams probably ought to be encouraged to find another job, ideally via HR informing him his services are no longer required. Ex-con or not.

Can we get that approved world wide?

 

[DREW WILEY]

He did find another job - bought a boat and went into illegal smuggling. I don't know what happened to him after that. I was done with that whole neighborhood - too risky to work in. The owner of that otherwise extremely successful store was an old scarface himself, literally. That was back when the unions were still tightly connected to the mob in SF, and all kinds of wheelie-dealie things were going on. In this era, it's more likely to be a Sheriff's Dept in a narco county turning a blind eye to all kinds of things, or even being involved in the drug activity. A complex picture.

A couple years ago I ran into the head Forester of a big NF area infamous for its sheer quantity of illegal po operations, and asked him why they didn't deal with most of those, since so much illegal carcinogenic pesticides and herbicides were getting into the streams. His response was, that if they did break up those pot farms, the kind of people involved would simply turn to meth production instead, which would be even worse. But a lot of it got resolved anyway by massive forest fires ripping through there the next two years, destroying much of that illegal nonsense along with everything else.

 

[BrianShaw]

Since the Soapbox is no longer, we should ask the Mods to create a new category: Tall Tales.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Since the Soapbox is no longer, we should ask the Mods to create a new category: Tall Tales.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Builds a good case to always buy insurance for valuable items, eh?

BTW, another twist that you might enjoy thinking about… what if your Leica gets stolen and recovered and identified as stolen from you, but it was insured and you were compensated by the insurance company for your loss. Who ultimately owns the recovered Leica in that case?

I don't think the insurance company will pay you for theft if you have to return it because it was stolen previously.

In a situation where an insurance company reimburses you for something that was stolen from you, the ownership of the product if recovered subsequently belongs to them to dispose of however they decide. You can't keep the property since it doesn't belong to you anymore.