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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue

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Results for trafficking in narcotics

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Author: New Jersey. Commission of Investigation

Title: Corrupt Commerce: Heroin, Thievery and the Underground Trade in Stolen Goods

Summary: In two years, he burned through an $800,000 inheritance, lost his home and allowed his family business to die. Desperate and broke, he found a lucrative new way to fund the heroin addiction that consumed his fortune and his life: stolen metal. He tore wire and copper pipe from buildings. He heaved manhole covers from the streets, ripped storm drains from parking lots, pulled heavy metal pins from construction barriers. Then, in an old sedan weighed down nearly to the pavement, he routinely took his haul to a booming scrap yard linked to organized crime in Hillsborough, Somerset County. There, the owner and employees readily bought the stolen metal for cash, no questions asked, not a word to the police. A hundred miles to the south, a young woman hit upon her own way to remedy the dopesickness that dictated her daily rhythms. She led a crew that shoplifted more than $100,000 in goods from major retail chains, then returned the items for gifts cards in the amount of the stolen merchandise. She sold those cards for 50 cents on the dollar to willing businesses across South Jersey. Again, no questions asked, no alert about suspicious behavior. The State Commission of Investigation has found that these circumstances are emblematic of a corrupt and enduring commerce in New Jersey's lightly regulated and often lawless world of scrap yards, pawn shops, cash-for-gold outlets and secondhand goods operations. Driven largely by the heroin and opioid epidemic, this shadowy underground economy is being exploited for profit across the state by convicted felons and elements of organized crime. In business after business, Commission investigators identified owners and employees with extensive criminal histories, including convictions for fraud, burglary, receiving stolen property, assault, firearms violations, narcotics distribution and racketeering. The SCI found evidence of drug-dealing directly from the counter at one shop, the illegal sale of handguns at another and links to a mob-related loansharking scheme at a third. At those locations and others, investigators found that owners and employees regularly accepted stolen goods, from jewelry to power tools, and in some cases directed customers to steal in-demand items likely to maximize profits upon resale. Collectively, the Commission estimates, the businesses have bought and sold tens of millions of dollars in stolen goods in recent years. This thriving marketplace, operating with little oversight or accountability, incentivizes theft and promotes destructive acts against both public and private infrastructure, putting residents in jeopardy. The widespread plundering of copper wiring and heavy-duty backup batteries from cell phone towers undermines cellular service during power outages. The theft of wire that transmits signals along train tracks delays commuters, requires costly repairs and strains an already overtaxed transit system. The removal of electricity-conducting wire from utility substations compromises the power grid. Little is off limits. Scrap hunters have ripped the risers from bleachers at schools, made off with aluminum street lamps from highways and stolen bronze vases from graves. The enormous costs of the illicit bargain between thieves and unscrupulous owners are borne by all New Jerseyans: the ratepayers who see higher bills for cell service and electricity; the consumers who pay more for goods at retail stores; the taxpayers ultimately responsible for replacing infrastructure that has vanished in the night. By providing an easy route for drug addicts and opportunists to cash in on stolen metal and merchandise, these enterprises have helped spawn an endless cycle of theft, one that law enforcement cannot keep pace with, much less end, without a muscular response from the State. The Commission carried out this investigation in keeping with its 50-year-old statutory mandate to identify and expose corruption, to highlight government laxity and gaps in oversight, to determine the effectiveness of New Jersey's laws and to inform the Governor, the Legislature, the Attorney General and the public about the influence and intrusion of organized crime. In particular, the findings set forth in this report build upon groundbreaking investigative work dating back nearly a decade when the SCI became one of the first agencies of government to identify the burgeoning opioid and heroin epidemic. Over the course of this inquiry, SCI investigators issued scores of subpoenas, analyzed banking records and conducted more than 100 interviews with law enforcement officers, metal recyclers, state and municipal officials, representatives of the telecommunications and retail industries, and the owners and employees of outfits engaged in suspect or illegal behavior. Just as significantly, the SCI interviewed those with the clearest view of interactions with these businesses: the addicts and former addicts who carried out thefts for drug money. SCI agents also conducted surveillance at suspect establishments and, in cooperation with police departments and confidential sources, participated in sting operations at scrap yards and secondhand goods stores. In those cases, items purchased by the Commission or lawfully obtained from utilities, phone companies and retail stores were sold to owners or employees with the fictive understanding the items had been stolen. The inquiry found that state and municipal regulations governing these businesses are scattershot, inadequate and unevenly enforced. The State licenses traditional pawn shops, which provide collateral-based loans, while municipalities license cash-for-gold shops, secondhand goods stores and scrap yards. Ordinances vary widely in strength and effectiveness from municipality to municipality. Laws governing some aspects of the businesses have proven to be window dressing, too minimal in scope and so erratically enforced they have failed to deter the prodigious flow of stolen goods. Equally troubling, SCI investigators found that many owners regularly flout the few rules that apply to them with little or no consequence. In some towns, the Commission found, law enforcement officials were unaware their governing bodies had passed ordinances giving police the means to crack down on the businesses - a breakdown in communication and coordination that has sapped accountability. The Commission is mindful that pawn outlets, secondhand goods stores and scrap metal recyclers contribute to the tax base in their communities and provide services helpful to the public. Local scrap yards are building blocks in the international commerce of recycled metal. In addition, not all owners and employees operate flagrantly outside the bounds of decency and the law. But in the absence of meaningful oversight, far too many of these operations have been subverted by criminal activity. The Commission recommends the State take the lead in licensing and regulating these industries. As the Legislature in recent decades has moved to root out organized crime from New Jersey's trash-hauling companies and casinos, so, too, should the State ban mob associates and those with extensive criminal records from trades that remain obvious and attractive pathways for the disposal of stolen property. Further, the Commission recommends requiring owners and employees to record all transactions in an online database accessible by law enforcement. Two such databases are already in use in neighboring states and in a minority of New Jersey municipalities, allowing investigators to more efficiently track sales, identify trends, find stolen merchandise and hold dishonest owners and employees accountable.

Details: Trenton: The Commission, 2018. 108p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 21, 2018 at: https://www.nj.gov/sci/pdf/Stolen%20Goods%20Report%20Final.pdf

Year: 2018

Country: United States

URL: https://www.nj.gov/sci/pdf/Stolen%20Goods%20Report%20Final.pdf

Shelf Number: 150626

Keywords:
Illegal Trade
Metal Theft
Narcotics
Opioid Crisis
Organized Crime
Scrap Metal Theft
Stolen Goods
Stolen Property
Trafficking in Narcotics
Underground Economy