Huntsville AL police charge store owners with buying stolen merchandise www.privateofficer.com

Huntsville AL May 10 2012  Police now have four people in custody in connection to a convenience store crackdown. Police busted four stores and accused someone in the stores of buying stolen merchandise. Investigators say the merchandise was stolen from Kroger and Publix stores in Georgia.

Police arrested four men ranging in age from 26 to 53. The men worked at an area Chevron, Texaco, Bama Grocery Store and Citgo. Each of the men has two charges, theft of property and buying/receiving stolen property.

Huntsville Police say the convenience store crackdown is only the beginning. Investigators believe what they’ve uncovered means there is even more of the same thing going on in other places. The lead investigator hopes the arrests lead to the arrests of others who do the same crime.

Sergeant Mark Roberts says this type of stuff has been happening a while.

“We’d been aware of this for a lot of years,” said Sgt. Mark Roberts.

Sgt. Roberts and other officers needed a little help to make the arrests.

The convenience store crackdown lead investigator got that assistance from Kroger and Publix.

Representatives from both stores called Huntsville Police to say they noticed a large amount of their stuff was being stolen and re-sold in Huntsville.

“They provided us the information and the goods. We just basically followed through to provide the ability for law enforcement to go sell the stolen items to the stores and catch the bad guys,” added Sgt. Roberts.

HPD put together a team of investigators to conduct a sting. The team raided four convenience stores. Police arrested four people accused of knowingly selling alcohol, baby formula, cigarettes, food and more stolen from the Kroger and Publix stores.

“This is a regular occurrence at a lot of these stores,” added Sgt. Roberts.

Investigators did not know what to expect from their sting, but are satisfied with its results. They are also happy with the help from Kroger and Publix.

“With the success of this, we anticipate doing this, with the same partnership that is offered anytime we want to do something like this,” added Sgt. Roberts.

Sgt. Roberts says he hopes investigations like this don’t stop with Kroger and Publix. He says it would be great if other stores can help prevent theft by building partnerships with police.

Sgt. Roberts says he would like to see the state give more flexibility to officers when making arrests for theft of property and buying/receiving stolen property. He says it would be great if officer could arrest store owners in stings like this one.

Source:WHNT.com