Standing with the County’s Department of Public Safety, County Executive George Latimer signed legislation aimed at giving them the tools they need to keep us all safe.
Latimer said: “This legislation will solve a loophole in the law created by changes in technology. The task to investigate a crime with a high value stolen item was always a laborious process and involved going through actual paper records from any number of sources. By creating this electronic registry, we are making the detection of this crime that much quicker.”
Law enforcement has identified an increase in crimes related to stolen goods which coincides with the onset of the opioid and heroin epidemic - and while laws currently exist to regulate precious metal and gem dealers, they were in need of an update to keep up with advancements in technology and changes in law enforcement trends.
Since secondhand dealers are often used to dispose of stolen goods, controls and regulations on the industry would assist in preventing the proliferation of stolen goods being sold for quick cash which is then in turn used to purchase drugs. This new law requires metal and gem dealers to not only maintain written records of their transactions, but also submit daily electronic records of each transaction they make. This will provide law enforcement with the tools necessary to combat the secondhand sale of stolen, or otherwise illegally obtained, goods.
Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Gleason said: “This bill enhances our ability to identify persons who have sold stolen property and increases the odds that we can recover that property for its rightful owner. I would like to thank County Executive Latimer and the Board of Legislators for supporting legislation that modernizes how these transactions are reported and tracked.”
Consumer Protection Director Jim Maisano said: “This is clearly one of those situations where we needed to update the laws of Westchester to better catch thieves. The only way we can catch the thieves is to update technology to get this data transferred very quickly so we can identify those items and get them back for the person that lost them before they're sold and lost forever. That is why these updates are so important.”
This new local law makes sweeping changes to the current version of the law regulating precious metal and gem dealers which has not been otherwise updated since 1985.