Stolen radios?

[AM909]

Especially for those in the two-way biz, what do you do when someone brings you a radio to be programmed, it's got markings or programming that make it clear which organization was using it, and the new "owner" has no legit bill of sale or it came from eBay?

Worse, what if it was originally sold to one of your own customers? What are your legal obligations? Is it your right or legal obligation to try to recover it for the original owner (and how)?

(No, I don't have a specific case in mind, but I've seen it come up a few times over the years.)

 

[KK4JUG]

Call the police and cooperate with them. Let them make the decisions.

 

[mmckenna]

I've only had this happen once, and I contacted the agency.

Turned out they'd surplussed the radio and it was legit.

But there's a professional courtesy/obligation/responsibility involved. Since I work with the other agencies, I'm not going to turn a blind eye to something like this, because I'd want them to do the same for me.

On that note:
This is one of the reasons I read/write protect all our radios. It puts a small roadblock in the way and removes the "Gee, I didn't know…." excuse.

Agencies need to wipe the radios before they sell/surplus/e-waste them. Amazing how many agencies will dump radios loaded with their frequencies/encryption keys.

 

[KevinC]

I only had it happen once as well and also contacted the agency. They said it was stolen from a deputy's vehicle along with his weapons and vest. We told the guy we'd have the radio ready the next day and he actually came back. Law enforcement setup and was waiting when he came back to pick up the radio and nabbed him. I don't know what happened from there on. I do know the owner took the Crime Stoppers reward money ($5,000) for this even though I did all the legwork.

 

[WB5UOM]

Yup had a guy bring a radio in to get it programed, I looked at it and stand by let me see if it has a password...
it did...mine...called the litlle pd and they said yup...
I went back up front and told they guy that that radio shows to belong to a local pd..he didnt say a word just turned and left.

 

[12dbsinad]

We've had it happen twice that I can recall. One of the times it was a hot radio from a Volly FD. Since we did their radio work it contained our sticker underneath the battery.

Dude bought the radio on Marketplace and Just happened to bring it to his local Harris dealer to be programmed... which was us. Opps. The SO traced it back to the seller who used his own profile (idiot), and he got got pinched, along with a bunch of other FD stuff..

Fun times.

 

[nokones]

Many years ago, I bought a MT2000 radios off of eBay and it turned up as a stolen radio. The radio was owned by Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office and I was contacted by the County DA regarding the purchase transaction. I provided the paper work on the purchase transaction and the DA never asked for the radio to be returned. It turned out that the Deputy that was assigned the radio decided to steal and sell the radio for some quick cash.

I bet you can guess what happened to the Deputy and you can be rest assured that he wouldn't be eligible for any retirement benefits in his future.

 

[kb4mdz]

Had a couple 410 MHz HT-90s show up at my bench (about 1992! Yes, that far ago!). Didn't seem right, of course, Forget what legwork I did, but they came from a USPS warehouse nearby; couple temp workers had been lifting stuff and thought a pair of radios would be cool to have. Turned over to the agency, guy was arrested.

 

[MTS2000des]

During COVID, a DA investigator lost their radio. Joe Criminal picked it up, took it a Cash America pawn, and despite the radio displaying the agency name and unit number, with SO DISP on the display, the pawn shop gladly took it and paid a whopping $40 on it. Said pawn shop did hold it for 90 days, then sold it on Ebay for over $1000.

The investigator didn't notice radio missing until everyone told to come "back to work" months later. Report was then filed and once it was entered into GCIC, a pawn desk hit occurred. The radio was sold to someone out of state. The DA's office subpoena got the buyers' name, and Ebay did refund their money and the radio was returned to an out of state LE agency.

What was interesting is the buyer reprogrammed the radio and it was loaded with typical NAS whacker crap. This taught me why you need to keep your firmware updated (we already password protect CPs) as later firmware made depot dicking useless and won't let one bypass passwords. None the less, reprogrammed recovered radio with proper codeplug, brought firmware up to current, and reissued subscriber.

Dumas that picked up the radio got a felony theft of stolen/mislaid properly chartge and ended up doing several months in county jail with time served and a felony conviction. Hope it was worth the whopping 40 bucks. I don't feel bad for the pawn shop. The radio was obviously stolen though not initially reported and a quick phone call to our comm center would have told them that.

 

[nokones]

Back in the mid 90s, I came in possession of a HT1000 that did not have any markings or property stickers on the radio. I read the codeplug and appeared to be a specific law enforcement agency radio personality. The radio was not listed in the State's Automated Property System as a lost or stolen property. I called the agency that their radio personality were programmed in the top six channel positions assuming it was that agency's radio and it turned out that it was one of their radios so I returned it to them. It appeared that a Detective made a traffic stop and left the radio on top of the car and it fell off when he drove away when clearing the stop.

 

[Echo4Thirty]

I bet you can guess what happened to the Deputy and you can be rest assured that he wouldn't be eligible for any retirement benefits in his future.

He was transferred to another agency and has since retired with full benefits?

 

[kayn1n32008]

Many years ago the shop I was working working for had a guy come in with a TAD-M8 and wanted it programmed with the usual LADD and local logging frequencies. It got given to me to do because I was the only one one that had any experience with TAD.

I took it to my bench and put power to it only to find it locked needing a password.

I asked the owner, who didn't know, so I called TAD and asked them how to clear it. They asked for the serial number, it became clear it was stolen and had somehow ended up in front of me.

At that point, it was turned over to the police and they dealt with it. No idea what happened after that.

 

[AM909]

So in many of these situations, you (the dealer) are now in possession of a radio that you've been asked by a random person to service in some way, and you believe (with varying degrees of certainty) that the person that brought it to you is not the rightful owner. Now the random person gets cold feet and decides he wants the radio back. Are you within your rights to keep it from him while you "investigate"? Must you to avoid an accessory charge? Let's say you find out it belongs to your customer, who still claims ownership. Can you act as his agent and give it back to him? It seems like the answer should probably be "call police", though I don't know what kind of response time you can expect in a busy metro area for a few-hundred-dollar crime. I suppose if it's a law-enforcement radio, that moves things along.

 

[MTS2000des]

In the case of government agencies, the authority comes from a duty to act if a reasonable person believes an article is stolen. The next steps is to notify law enforcement and the rightful owner. Can't speak for a private shop, but the "reasonable person" applies here. For example, the pawn shop that took the stolen APX6000 should have known that it was the property of a gov agency based upon the markings and electronic identification clearly visible when powered on. Accepting it made them an accessory but in their defense, it was stolen but not reported yet, so they took reasonable measures using their pawn desk software which interfaces directly to the police RMS system in that jurisdiction. It wasn't stolen at the time of being presented so that is their affirmative defense.

 

[kayn1n32008]

So in many of these situations, you (the dealer) are now in possession of a radio that you've been asked by a random person to service in some way, and you believe (with varying degrees of certainty) that the person that brought it to you is not the rightful owner. Now the random person gets cold feet and decides he wants the radio back. Are you within your rights to keep it from him while you "investigate"? Must you to avoid an accessory charge? Let's say you find out it belongs to your customer, who still claims ownership. Can you act as his agent and give it back to him? It seems like the answer should probably be "call police", though I don't know what kind of response time you can expect in a busy metro area for a few-hundred-dollar crime. I suppose if it's a law-enforcement radio, that moves things along.

I'm my case, by calling TAD, it was taken out of my hands. TAD called the Police and they came and got the radio.

 

[dkcorlfla]

Yup had a guy bring a radio in to get it programed, I looked at it and stand by let me see if it has a password...
it did...mine...called the litlle pd and they said yup...
I went back up front and told they guy that that radio shows to belong to a local pd..he didnt say a word just turned and left.

You did not play this right - should have been "I went back up front and said no problem I will have it ready next day" this would give the SWAT plenty of time to setup for the bust! ;-)

 

[davidgcet]

back in the 90's we had a group of local entrepreneurs come in as one was buying a pager for his on call street corner business. after they left we noticed our pager display stand missing several dummy units, you know the ones with the printed display and weight in an empty case so they feel real. the VERY next day 2 of them came in to each activate a pager they "owned". We had 2 marked cars sitting in the parking lot as they just happened to be there getting radio work done. so we mentioned it to the cops and they came up front to ask the gentlemen about the pagers, which not only were dummies but also clearly had our logo sticker on the front of them. a 3rd guy was outside and saw the cops so he took off running. as it happened the Chief from the next town over was driving by and saw the runner take off. he bailed and tackled him then brought him inside in cuffs. Said he had no clue what was going on but when he saw the well known dealer running he knew something was up and just acted on it. Naturally they were not given any real punishment, far as i remember it never even went to court, but it was instant Karma and i still laugh about it to this day.

more than once we had county owned radios show up to be programmed because some farmer bought them "at auction". usually they had been stunned and they thought it was just a dead battery. usually it was a legit lost radio so no agency personnel got in trouble.

But once we had a lowly volunteer fire man, as in the greenest volunteer they had, that actually tried to sell the fire truck! when the buying agency showed up with a check to get it is when he was caught. he really meant no harm, at a recent meeting they had discussed the need to raise something north of 50k to be able to get a new one. This guy was not the brightest bulb in the string and he thought if he sold the old truck it would raise the money and they could just go pick up a brand new one, not that the money was what was needed just to get the whole year long buying process started. Needless to say he was nearly as disappointed as the buying agency to find out he plan was no good. he did get kicked out the department, but not charged somehow. i think the buyers we so embarrassed about it they just did not press charges for the "scam" and since he did actually have them make the check to the department and never completed the sale there was nothing the department could charge him with either.

 

[dkcorlfla]

back in the 90's we had a group of local entrepreneurs come in as one was buying a pager for his on call street corner business. after they left we noticed our pager display stand missing several dummy units, you know the ones with the printed display and weight in an empty case so they feel real. the VERY next day 2 of them came in to each activate a pager they "owned". We had 2 marked cars sitting in the parking lot as they just happened to be there getting radio work done. so we mentioned it to the cops and they came up front to ask the gentlemen about the pagers, which not only were dummies but also clearly had our logo sticker on the front of them. a 3rd guy was outside and saw the cops so he took off running. as it happened the Chief from the next town over was driving by and saw the runner take off. he bailed and tackled him then brought him inside in cuffs. Said he had no clue what was going on but when he saw the well known dealer running he knew something was up and just acted on it. Naturally they were not given any real punishment, far as i remember it never even went to court, but it was instant Karma and i still laugh about it to this day.

more than once we had county owned radios show up to be programmed because some farmer bought them "at auction". usually they had been stunned and they thought it was just a dead battery. usually it was a legit lost radio so no agency personnel got in trouble.

But once we had a lowly volunteer fire man, as in the greenest volunteer they had, that actually tried to sell the fire truck! when the buying agency showed up with a check to get it is when he was caught. he really meant no harm, at a recent meeting they had discussed the need to raise something north of 50k to be able to get a new one. This guy was not the brightest bulb in the string and he thought if he sold the old truck it would raise the money and they could just go pick up a brand new one, not that the money was what was needed just to get the whole year long buying process started. Needless to say he was nearly as disappointed as the buying agency to find out he plan was no good. he did get kicked out the department, but not charged somehow. i think the buyers we so embarrassed about it they just did not press charges for the "scam" and since he did actually have them make the check to the department and never completed the sale there was nothing the department could charge him with either.

LMAO, that was a good one!

 

[hill]

Yea I bought a used radio on Ebay luckily no password, but still contained conventional programming from it's past fire life.

Those agencies were no where near my location.

 

[TampaTyron]

We had an employee pawn a bunch of our tools, demo radios, and customer radios.......... 0/10 do not recommend. Our own radios starting showing up from folks who bought them at the pawn shop and wanted them programmed. We would then inform them of the situation and then ask for their contact info. If they didn't give it to us, we would follow them out of the shop and take pictures of their license plate and add it to the complaint with the local law enforcement.

We also "know" the local systems around us and if their radios show up, we call the system owners and ask if the radios are missing. Also, we have had a few shops go out of business in the last few years, so there is always weird stuff that pops up, but is legit. TT