Where to buy stolen goods online

At least in the United Kingdom, buying stolen goods, like many other offenses, is a crime most often committed by those who are young, single, male, relatively unskilled, and living in relatively deprived areas. At any time, business owners who are not professional fences may buy stolen goods. The same is true for tradespeople and anyone else within any population of "ordinary folks" who find it hard to resist the chance of a bargain with no questions asked.

Whereas most citizens are intolerant of thieves and of stealing, they tend to be more tolerant of stolen goods buyers and sellers because they are seen as entrepreneurs providing the valuable local service of making goods available at bargain prices.

Even if they do not buy, most are unlikely to report people selling goods in this way. In the United Kingdom, some 29 percent of arrested thieves are heroin or cocaine users, and these are the most prolific offenders, probably responsible for more than three-fifths of the illegal income generated by selling stolen goods.

That said, drug dealers do accept certain kinds of property in exchange for drugs, and they also buy stolen property. Stolen goods markets tend to have particular local, as well as national, characteristics in terms of what thieves steal and how those involved conduct transactions.

There are six stolen goods market types that are distinctive in the ways that thieves, dealers, and consumers operate. The six market types are as follows:. See Davis for a useful guide for police officers investigating Internetfacilitated crime. By and large, offenders—particularly those operating within network sales markets—are flexible in how they use available markets.

Understanding the dilemmas those dealing in stolen goods face is useful in designing prevention and control strategies. The stolen goods seller's dilemma is that to increase his chances of making a profit, he has to increase his risks of getting caught. The seller can choose to sell only to people he knows, which reduces his risks of getting ripped off or detected but restricts his sales and buying opportunities.

Or the seller can sell to strangers, which allows him access to more potential customers but also increases his chances of getting arrested or ripped off. These conflicting demands of access and security determine to a large extent the structure of local stolen goods markets. Some stolen goods dealers are professional fences who conceal their activities behind legitimate business fronts.

Others are not, but operate instead out of their own homes or else on the move, using, for example, networks of associates linked by mobile phone. In other markets, consumers and innocent dealers may buy directly from thieves rather than through a fence. Fences tend to specialize in selling in particular market types, but some sell in more than one market type. For example, fences operating in commercial fence supplies markets may deal at home as residential fences, but also be involved in network sales 41 or even "eSelling," particularly where stolen items not sold through their legitimate retail business are being traded.

There are several types of fences, including the following very useful typology constructed by Lewis to outline the specific dynamics of different types of commercial fencing operations:. Commercial fences use their business front to recruit thieves who come in offering them stolen goods. This is the commercial fence supplies market operating at Level They also mix stolen goods in with their legitimate stock.

Somewhat perversely, this helps to sell legitimate stock, as people think they are getting a genuine bargain if goods are stolen, even when they are not. This is the commercial sales market at Level Understanding the unique dynamics of particular offending can help identify and also understand the behavior of less visible offenses and offenders that facilitate more visible crime problems such as theft.

For a professional fence to operate and avoid arrest, he needs to coach promising thieves to avoid detection and maximize profits. He must conceal his stolen goods trading behind a legitimate trading front. He should remain willfully ignorant about whether the goods that he buys from other dealers are stolen. He must try to offload stolen goods quickly to avoid detection, but also know when it is safer to store them and sell them later. He must avoid getting caught in possession of stolen goods, but if he is, he should know how to make it difficult for police to prove that he knows the goods are stolen.

He must be careful not to work with police informants and limit the number of people who know about his business. He must never admit to knowingly trading in stolen goods if the police question him. The Volvo is being sold on a website caricle. When it comes to stolen jewelry, the biggest online marketplace in which criminals turn to is cash4gold. At this website, they are able to sell any type of jewelry, for easy cash, which is then turned into an unrecognizable liquid.

Some criminals tend to only target the items which are accepted by the website. For selling electronics, like iPhones, many thieves turn to eBay. At this website, they are able to focus on people who can offer them the best price. The focus, for most criminals, is getting the stolen merchandise out of their hands. And as a result, they knock down the price low enough to make people believe that they got a good deal.

When selling stolen merchandise, criminals are known for putting up fake reviews so as to get more people to buy their product. There are various ways in which you can prevent yourself from becoming a victim of this cycle. One way is to review the five-star ratings, which some sellers have admitted to posting fake ratings. In reducing your risk of becoming a victim, be skeptical of the reviews that lack detail or are two positive.

Another way is being mindful of the price. By focusing on these two ways, as well as others, you will help yourself by not falling into the crime cycle of online stolen goods. Saving yourself jail time and from multiple charges.

Cart reservation expired. Online shoppers find themselves victims of this crime every day and police have specially trained squads who constantly scrutinize sales sites looking for the proceeds of burglary and theft.

Law enforcement organizations also have access to a national database of missing items, including their serial numbers. So, what can you do to avoid buying something that's stolen?

And if you do buy something in good faith that turns out to have been stolen, what are your options? Though you can't always be certain whether an item being offered for sale online is stolen, there are a number of warning signs that should put you on your guard. Individually, some of these red flags may not indicate that a product has been stolen but they should put you on your guard, especially if there are multiple red flags.

If you know or suspect an item may have been stolen, don't buy it because you could be committing an offense. First, let us make an important disclaimer: Scambusters does not provide legal advice. Our reports are purely for information and we don't accept liability for any actions you take.

Also, we don't have the resources to answer your questions.