Theft story

MP Guy

MP Guy

Just another face in the crowd
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A couple of weeks I stopped by my local camera store on the way home form work here in Oregon. This is something I do on a regular basis to avoid the rush hour traffic. On this particular day, The store seemed a bit strange in appearance. The night before they had been burglarized or for you limies (burgled) :) I was talking with the manage and it seems like the crooks did ok. They took a bunch of EMPTY nikon D70 boxes but managed to take some nice leica stuff including an MP , summicron , macro viewfinder and some fancy binoculars. Its really sad to see such nice gear just taken like that and propbably pawned for for10 cents on the dollar. None the less, I told him I would keep an eye out for it.

Thursday night, I am surfing Ebay and I see this really nice chrome MP with a black 50. Not an unusual item for ebay. what was odd about this was that the seller was in Oregon. oh well, could be lefit to. After all I have an MP and live in Oregon. I am sure I am not the only one. The next day,on the way home from work I stopped at the store and talked about my ebay search results. The manager gave me the serial numbers of the missing item so I could check it when I got home. Later that night, I brought up the MP on ebay and looked at the nice LARGE pictures of the camera from above and front shown the serial numbers on the hot shoe and the lens. well, what do you know. Its our missing camera. I placed a really high bid on the camera to secure it and sentthe seller an email saying I live in Oregon and was wondering if I could pick it up if I was the weinner. Meanwhile, I had also told the store about this and they were following up with the police. This Monday I received an email from the seller telling me Sure, come and pick it up. He even gave me his address in the town of dalles Or. I then contacted the store and gave them the details. I told them to tell the local police to confiscate the items.

Just 10 minutes ago I received an email from Ebay. Auction ended:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7505133916

Called the camera store and they said the police picked up everything except for the 50.

Not bad...
 
With over a thousand feedbacks and a lot of auctions still going on, I'm wondering where he got all the other stuff...

Roman

BTW, congratulations, Jorge!
 
Roman,
My thoughts also. He's sold a LOT of stuff, how much of it was also stolen? Or is he just the "fence", receiving stolen goods?
Great detective work Jorge!!!
 
I would bet he is just the guy selling of the stuff. A crook none the less. Nice job catching the bugger. I'll bet you have a real good relationship with that shop owner from now on :)


John
 
based on the ebay user's account, it seems like he's been in business for a while, with many current auctions and good feedback. i'm sure that the seller wasn't principally involved in the theft... i do wonder how he managed to get the item though?

i'm sure the crook sold it to him, but who knows if it was directly.

you should hit up the camera store for the details - and post them!
 
nwcanonman said:
Roman,
My thoughts also. He's sold a LOT of stuff, how much of it was also stolen? Or is he just the "fence", receiving stolen goods?
Great detective work Jorge!!!
Click to expand...

Quite so! Hope the police were smart enough to start checking all the other items he had for sale. Perhaps you might want to mention it to the shop owner to pass along to the police. They might increase their solve rate. Always a nice thing to do.

Do try to get some additional info. You want to know if your name is going to end up in the police report and if a perp is going to get access to it. That just so you will know. Frankly, most perps aren't going to do anything as they are already in trouble, and don't need to add to it. Most threats are only as good as the person receiving them makes them.

Congrats Jorge! Not everybody would take the time to be such a good citizen.
 
That's FANTASTIC! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

I suspect you'll be called as a witness if the guy does not plead guilty. The police have to establish in court how they came to find the missing loot and the bad guy, and you're the reason behind the story.

Again - WELL DONE!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
Ok, curiosity got me. {meow} I pulled up that listing.

Wow, feedback of 1193. I sure hope somebody reports that to Ebay and gets him NARU'd.

LOL:

Q: I live in Oregon. Can I pick up locally if I win? answered on: Apr-03-05
A: Sure.
 
Checkout the "About Me" link.

"I play with ebay for our son that owns the camera store." And there's a picture of the Grandpa & grandson.

I think there's going to be a family crisis soon.
 
"I love it when a plan comes together"

Speaking from someone who has experienced a similar loss, I hope they fire up old sparky and fry the S.O.B., surely stealing a Leica is punishible by death ;) .

Now you should continue to contact him, when he doesn't respond.....turn him into ebay!

Todd
 
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