by Chris Chapman
The economy is in shambles yet some people have found a market that is still profitable. Precious metals found in scrap quantity or used in other ways have a habit of finding their way to pawnshops. One Cattaraugus County lawmaker is looking to help reduce the amount of theft around these items.
William Aiello (R, Olean) is looking for a way to create a local law that would restrict pawnshops in how quickly they are able to melt down metals like gold and silver when a customer brings an item in for quick sale.
At a meeting this past Monday, Aiello met with members of law enforcement from Gowanda, Salamanca, the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Department and New York State Police to brainstorm ways of ending this problem.
“The idea came when I was at a police chiefs’ convention to set up a booth,” Aiello said. “The people from Leads Online were there and put Olean, New York, in their database and returned with two hits for stolen jewelry.”
Aiello is a former juvenile officer with the Olean Police Department, now with the New York State Juvenile Offers Organization, who is working with local law enforcement agencies and the Cattaraugus County Attorney, Thomas Brady, on crafting an effective local law.
Currently, pawnshops, and especially jewelry stores, that receive gold or other precious metals are able to melt it down almost immediately, Aiello said. If the pieces are stolen, the process does not allow time for the rightful owners to reclaim their jewelry.
“Pawnshops are regulated,” Aiello said. “The owners of the shop are required to keep a log of who sold the item and who bought it, as well as a description.”
As gold prices continue their march upward, thefts of jewelry containing gold and silver continue to rise. Currently, shop owners that would be taking in such items are able to melt the piece down immediately. With no time requirement to hold these pieces, law enforcement is at a disadvantage in being able to recover stolen pieces.
The law to be proposed by Aiello states that brokers would have to hold the pieces for a specified time – approximately 10 days – to allow law enforcement to check the item against stolen reports before the shopkeepers are able to melt them down or try to resell the items.
“This is another tool to give law enforcement the opportunity to recover stolen items and not have it melted down or sent out of the area,” Aiello said.
Aiello said he anticipates the draft of the local law to be completed and presented to committee sometime in November.
At the time of this writing, these precious metals carried values as follows: gold at $1,765.50/oz. and silver at $36.13/oz. (www.kitco.com as of Sept. 22)
