You can tackle a problem from multiple directions. So while direct prosecution is important, cutting off a method for converting stolen goods to money is also important. As soon as that method become unprofitable, the activity will either stop or switch to something else.
Regulating legitimate business activity out of existence to support progressive prosecutors ideas about shoplifting and street crime is the opposite of a solution.
Knowing your suppliers and that their goods are legitimate is a pretty basic function of a business, and calling people progressive to enforce that is a bit strange.
Amazon isn't a pawn shop. They have a lot of choice when it comes to dealing with known businesses.
It is a valuable activity that Amazon and eBay will ship any product to anyone at a fair price with a minimum of obligatory hoop jumping.
The more pressure they receive from the public and regulators to put a stop to those dastardly shoplifters, the more room Nike has to stop people from selling Nike shoes without a badge of certification from Nike.
Selling stolen goods hurts everyone, which is why it's a crime. It hurts the companies being stolen from, it hurts competing businesses who have a hard time competing legally, it hurts consumers, who get reduced choice due to reduced competition, and it hurts communities when their local chains shut down because organized crime has a place to fence their goods.
It's mind boggling that folks are defending the ability to sell stolen goods, while wanting to harshly punish petty theft.
I am not promoting "punishing harshly petty theft" I am suggesting that the direction current prosecutors are going is to not punish theft at all.
I am also not denying that Amazon and eBay can operate as easy targets to fence stolen goods. What I am suggesting is that demanding Amazon "do something" about goods that fell off the back of a truck essentially means that any seller who doesn't get an Official Licensed Dealer badge or equivalent from a name brand company cannot do business on the internet.
The only way to combat this from Amazon's side is to ban all sales not authorized by the original manufacturer. There's no way for them to tell on their end whether goods were legitimately purchased or not, and any system used to track these sellers or prevent them from operating would give big brands a "delete" button on sales of their products worldwide.
As someone who is not a fan of software licensing for physical goods, this terrifies me, and bringing that regulatory environment as a response when we aren't willing to prosecute people for these crimes seems a bit much.
> I am suggesting that the direction current prosecutors are going is to not punish theft at all.
Your suggestion would generally be incorrect. Prosecutors in _some_ jurisdictions are choosing not to prosecute petty theft, but when organized crime cases are brought to them, they are prosecuting them.
Police, however, have done a poor job of investigating these crime rings, and in some cases have chosen not to make arrests to push a political agenda.
More enforcement against petty theft won't stop the organized crime problem.
You're going to an extreme on how to stop the illegal sales. Amazon could, for instance, stop allowing sales from any company that has fenced illegal goods through them. They could only allow well established businesses that have existed for x years to sell, or heavily inspect companies younger than x years. They could get lists of well-known resellers from manufacturers and heavily inspect businesses not on those lists.
If local pawn shops can do it I think Amazon can do it.
You seem to have a weird position that Amazon is some innocent player in this exchange -- they are making money from every one of these illicit sales. They enjoy benefit from looking the other way -- its not that there are no processes that can halt or greatly reduce the problem.
Theft is prosecuted ffs, the issue is that it has become so lucrative (because of the easy way to convert the stolen items to money via amazon/ebay) that the system is being flooded by people stealing. In no reality can you catch 100% of shoplifters, but there is a reality where you make both sides of the act more costly with less reward (high chance of getting cought and prosecuted + hard to gain value from the goods).
> It's mind boggling that folks are defending the ability to sell stolen goods, while wanting to harshly punish petty theft.
I’m not seeing anyone defending selling stolen goods just saying it’s nearly impossible to tell where the goods come from.
Product gets refused for various reasons and the trucking companies aren’t really in the business of selling goods so they just get rid of it. I’ve seen them refuse a whole pallet because one box was run into by a forklift before.
Sometimes they tell you where to take it, sometimes they tell you to just get rid of it (usually only if it’s a couple cases) and if it’s not something you particularly want you just find some random person who does want it or a dumpster.
Not to mention all the other cases people have explained in this thread.
Right, pawn shops are held to a higher standard. They have a relationship with the local police and are made to keep records. Amazon is a better fence than your average pawn shop.
> No it isn’t. That’s a pretty basic part of living in a country with rule of law.
This is an incorrect framing: the law is that companies must know their suppliers, at least to the extent that they can demonstrate good faith compliance with laws around stolen, counterfeit, smuggled, etc. goods.
Given that Amazon has repeatedly been supplied evidence of fencing on its platform, it would be difficult to accept a defense from ignorance.
That is not the law, you’re just making up things out of whole cloth.
> Given that Amazon has repeatedly been supplied evidence of fencing on its platform, it would be difficult to accept a defense from ignorance
That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, Amazon being generally aware that there is fencing activity happening on their platform does not make Amazon liable.
> That is not the law, you’re just making up things out of whole cloth.
Every US state that I'm aware of makes it a crime to knowingly receive stolen property. Most additionally make it a crime to re-sell stolen property. On top of that, it's a Federal crime if the stolen property crosses state borders.
Here, for example, are NY's statutes on stolen property: Penal Law Ss. 165.40 through 165.65[1] (you'll need to navigate on that page to each section). In particular:
* It is not a sufficient defense to claim that the original thief has not been convicted or identified: § 165.50, bullet 1.
* Possession of stolen property encompasses the intent to sell that property: § 165.55, bullet 1.
> Amazon being generally aware that there is fencing activity happening on their platform does not make Amazon liable.
This implies passivity, when the relationship is an active one. If Amazon was an unstructured marketplace with individual business relationships between buyers and (potentially criminal) sellers, this argument might work. But that's not what FBA is, and it's not how these products are sold (you aren't buying Honest Abe's Big Brand Shampoo, you're buying Amazon-fulfilled Big Brand Shampoo).
> Every US state that I'm aware of makes it a crime to knowingly receive stolen property
For mens rea you’d need to know that the specific property you are receiving is stolen. Not that some of the amazon-scale quantities of property you’re receiving is inherently going to be stolen.
> This implies passivity, when the relationship is an active one
Mens rea is a sufficient condition, not a necessary one. You can also be found culpable under the standards of reckless action or criminal negligence. This is also true in every state that I'm aware of.
"We run such a large and haphazard business that we inevitably do a little crime" is textbook culpability via negligence.
Edit: And, to be absolutely clear, I do not believe for one moment that it isn't within Amazon's technical capabilities to detect at least some percentage of likely stolen goods on their site. This is merely the weakest possible argument for responsibility on their part.
That's why the standard is negligence and/or recklessness. Nobody expects Amazon to catch every single illegal use of their platform: the expectation is that they apply reasonable effort to doing so, including demonstrating a response to publicly known incidents of crime rings operating on their site.
I said exactly as much in my first comment.
Edit: This is at least the second time you've minimized an important piece of context: the problem is that they're accepting stolen goods, with multiple municipalities repeatedly warning them about it. Treating that as a "scale" issue doesn't wave the crime away, any more than throughput at a meatpacking factory would be a defense for the occasional employee being caught in the slaughter line.
> the expectation is that they apply reasonable effort to doing so, including demonstrating a response to publicly known incidents of crime rings operating on their site.
Again, rule of law. Reasonable effort is to do nothing unless they have information that would make a reasonable person believe that the specific goods were stolen.
There’s no expectation that Amazon would investigate the providence of the goods they receive.
> Edit: This is at least the second time you've minimized an important piece of context: the problem is that they're accepting stolen goods, with multiple municipalities repeatedly warning them about it.
No, I’m not. Amazon receives unimaginable amounts of goods, of which only a vanishingly small fraction is stolen goods.
> Treating that as a "scale" issue doesn't wave the crime away, any more than throughput at a meatpacking factory would be a defense for the occasional employee being caught in the slaughter line.
Are you serious? Surely the odds of an employee ever getting caught in the slaughter line must be greater than zero?
Surely you understand that if we were to infinitely scale the meatpacking factory, we’d be essentially guaranteed to see employees get chopped up.
> No, I’m not. Amazon receives unimaginable amounts of goods, of which only a vanishingly small fraction is stolen goods.
This simply does not matter in the eyes of the law. What matters is receiving stolen goods, period. The degree to which they do will solely determine the degree of the statute applied.
I think I'm just repeating myself at this point, so this will be the last time: there are different standards for culpability, and each exists for a reason. Accidents happen all the time, and we don't generally refer them for criminal prosecution unless they meet a standard of intentionality, knowledge, recklessness, or criminal negligence.
To use the slaughterhouse example again: nobody expects a slaughterhouse to be perfectly safe. However, we do expect a slaughterhouse to not recklessly or negligently expose its employees to danger. Nobody expects Amazon to perfectly avoid sales of stolen goods. However, we do expect them to pursue reports of stolen goods made by victims and investigating DAs.
I'm really interested why these "warnings" weren't subpoenas or warrants, especially if this is happening in multiple municipalities as you state. Is it some conspiracy across the US to not charge Amazon when probable cause is present, but instead send "warnings."
Not saying warnings don't happen when probable cause exists to prosecute a crime, but I think we're missing the content of these warnings before we get ahead of ourselves about what to think about them.
This is just baseless speculation on my part, but: municipalities don’t really want to take companies to court if they don’t have to. It’s expensive, politically risky, etc.
Besides, providing a warning actually helps the prosecution establish the crime: it’s much easier to argue negligence or recklessness if they can produce a history of repeatedly giving the company an opportunity to fix identified issues.
The government already has a mandate to prosecute crimes. It doesn't have a mandate to interfere with liberty. If they aren't going to do the job they already have why should they be allowed to find another excuse to avoid doing that job?
Regulating away legitimate secondary markets to sell on leaves us all paying higher prices. If brands and retailers believe it’s really retail theft causing all of this I invite them to track their goods better and run sting operations. I guarantee this type of money is going out the side door a truckload at a time, not the front door stuffed into someone’s shirt.
But the “progressive prosecutor problem” is a made up lie. Even in San Francisco where a DA recall vote actually succeeded it was obvious (and immediately proven[0]) that SFPD were actually just refusing to respond to calls:
Yes -- but we are not talking about that we are talking about selling goods for which you have no record of purchase and obtained through theft.
You are taking a pretty bit straw man here -- is your claim that there is no way to enforce procedures to curb stolen goods while selling other goods? I think every other seller that has been used as a fence in history would beg to differ -- just go to your local pawn shop.
This is one of those statements that feels good when no specifics are on the table, but if it was ever implemented we’d be seeing countless HN stories complaining about how Amazon is requiring sellers to provide too much documentation or closing their accounts for suspected dealing in stolen goods or something.
Heavy handed regulation always sounds better in hypothetical perfect knowledge scenarios, but kind of sucks for everyone in the real world.
Simply trying to rent a house here in Australia requires submitting a goldmine for identity theft. ID's, bank statements, workplace statements to prove you have a job and the list goes on.
And that simply gets you an application. No guarantee of being picked.
I have zero problems with a business having to prove - to whatever degree - they are legit.
Finance institutions have a KYC thing. Maybe Amazon needs a KYTrader.
AFAIK in the US you can buy/sell a house with an anonymous LLC. It's not clear to me you would even need an ID in the process, although that may vary by state. Definitely wouldn't need the rest of the stuff, except the money.
Buying a house doesn't require much ID. Borrowing money for it probably requires KYC, but maybe not exactly ID. Selling a house usually wants a notarized signature and notaries check ID (or are supposed to).
But also blame Amazon. If you ran a store that repeatedly sold stolen goods do you think local police and prosecutors would ignore you?
Trafficking in stolen property is a felony. That's true whether you definitely know it's stolen property or if you definitely should have known (recklessly trafficking). You, if you repeatedly did it out of your small business and ignored complaints, would face prison. Why does the law apply differently to Amazon?
My guess is, if you told Amazon's CEO that he had one month to substantially reduce trafficking or face felony prosecution and prison time - I bet you'd see severe reductions.
Really? I just googled my location plus "trafficked stolen property conviction" and found news stories regarding multiple convictions. It sure seems like the police investigate and arrest people knowingly selling stolen property. In what sense is Amazon not doing this, or recklessly disregarding whether or not they are doing this?
If I were a multi-hundred billion dollar business operating like Amazon, then of course cops and prosecutors would ignore me. Laws aren't for rich and powerful companies - they are for individuals and small business owners.
Stolen property convictions at least at the local level primarily come from stings where police come in with property that they describe as "boosted" or in similar terms and then once the sale is completed they arrest the store owner. Amazon being online is obviously immune to this kind of police work. As long as Amazon removes the seller once they become aware something is wrong they are probably not breaking any laws. Some states are trying to pass laws to make ecommerce platforms vet sellers more but I doubt this will make a difference because it is not hard to make fake invoices.
So, you think that if pawn shops and the like required thieves to fill out a webform and mail stolen property in to be resold, like on Amazon, then the shop owners would be immune from prosecution? That doesn't seem plausible to me.
The reality is that Amazon breaks the letter and spirit of the law. (Depending on jurisdiction) laws against trafficking stolen property do not require that the police catch you red handed in a sting, the law doesn't even require that you actually do know you are selling stolen property - you can be charged if you had a reckless disregard for selling stolen property. The spirit of the law is that selling stolen property makes theft more profitable and that will mean more theft which is bad so let's not sell stolen property. Amazon is obviously providing a way for thieves to profit.
Again, repeated violations of the letter and spirit of the law reported in major newspapers, and no criminal consequences for Amazon. Do you think if your local paper was repeatedly writing stories about how Pawn Shop X was helping thieves profit, that local police and prosecutors would just shrug and point to that webform + mail setup? I don't.
Even if you couldn't get a "slam dunk" case going after corporate leadership for this, you could try. Amazon has actually violated the letter and spirit of the law so it would be fair to bring a case against them. If the jury acquits, then wait until you find evidence of the next theft ring reselling on Amazon and bring new charges.
Even without a conviction I don't think corporate leadership would accept facing a jury trial once a month with the possibility of a conviction and prison time. Instead, Amazon would substantially improve protections on reselling stolen property - which is the desired outcome.
> So, you think that if pawn shops and the like required thieves to fill out a webform and mail stolen property in to be resold, like on Amazon, then the shop owners would be immune from prosecution? That doesn't seem plausible to me.
Not immune, just saying that the way police traditionally approach stolen property cases basically requires the suspect to be on tape acknowledging receiving stolen property. The reason they do that is because is the law requires them to show knowledge or that a reasonable person would know the property is stolen. Unless they find an email where someone in the company is notified that a seller is selling stolen property and doesn't do anything about they probably don't have a criminal case. What they could do is sue, get a "consent decree" and as part of the settlement force Amazon to implement more rigorous seller identification or something like that. But I doubt any Amazon employees are going to jail over this.
Yeah no they wouldn’t. How long did Amazon collect no sales tax before that loophole closed? How much did they have to pay back? If you tried that the state would stream roll you
Nope. In most states (CA for example) it is a felony to sell stolen goods when the amount exceeds a pretty modest threshold. If, as alleged in the parent comment, they are committing a crime on a large scale then the blame is very well placed.
*of course this does not exonerate the original thieves, but as a matter of practicality it is going to be easier to hit a single large offender than a myriad of small ones.
I am fairly sure that trafficking in stolen goods is only a crime if the person knew, or if a reasonable person should have known, that the goods were stolen.
And many people who buy from Amazon know Amazon must happen to sell some goods that are stolen, yet they still shop there. If everyone had to cease buying/selling because they know their counterparty must have some stolen goods then trade would literally ground to a halt.
I don't know if it's a crime if it's just "somewhere we must be buying stolen goods, but we don't know where." I'm not a lawyer but I think knowing that the specific item you bought/sold was stolen would look differently in court than just having some vague knowledge there must be stolen stuff somewhere in the supply chain.
This depends - if a person goes out of their way not to find out whether the goods are legitimate, it's equally bad.
Either way, if you possess stolen goods, they will usually be taken from you and returned to their owner. If that happened to a lot of Amazon customers, the refund volume would encourage Amazon to crack down on their supply chain.
You don't have to intend to commit a crime to have mens rea. You merely have to intentionally do all the steps involved in the crime. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, and neither is intentional ignorance of whether you are breaking it or not.
Pawn shops got the receiving end of this deal a while ago. Now it's Amazon's turn.
Intent does matter, however - plausible deniability would not be a thing otherwise.
Only in cases of strict liability are intentions not usually considered, which mostly include minor offenses (infractions) and a few major ones like statutory rape. Possession of items that are illegal to possess in any situation is another case where strict liability applies, but possession of legal goods that “a reasonable person” would not be aware was stolen does not fall into this case. Amazon sellers sign a contract saying the goods they offer for sell are their legal possessions to sell, giving Amazon plausible deniability as if anyone breaks the law, as the seller would then also be breaking their rules as well.
I think we need to ask ourselves the harder questions of why people are stealing and figure out how to address that issue. Just like how we here tend to condemn technological solutions for social problems, tons of legal regulations can be fairly criticized for a being a legal solution to a social problem.
I'm not sure why the fundamental problem here is that people are stealing, rather than that a known billionaire is willing to operate a business that is known to be an attractive way to profit from theft. You almost certainly can't eliminate theft without predictable laws; no one ever has, and to the extent that it's been reduced, the existence of a reliable legal process has been part of it.
And Amazon can't exactly plead "plausible deniability" in an absolute sense here, because they ought to be aware that they're acting as a fence, and they ought to be aware that their processes are insufficient for reducing the degree of theft that's going on. If they've deliberately chosen to be ignorant of those facts, it would actually raise their level of culpability.
Finally, your analogy of legal solutions to technical solutions fails. In a democracy, legal solutions exist to meet the burden of social expectations. They do not stand outside of society. Unlike democratic laws, technical solutions are usually imposed on a community by people with disproportionate power - laws are created on a one person - one vote basis, but technical solutions are usually created on a one dollar - one vote basis. Therefore, technical solutions are usually not responsive to the needs of a society, and are far more likely to represent someone's One Fantastic Idea to Solve All Problems, rather than a compromise of interests resulting in social norms that can be imposed on defectors.
This is exactly an occasion when existing laws should be used, rather than plea for the devaluation of trust and law by ignoring laws simply because they might be applied against a powerful person.
I do not think it is misplaced to look at a massive fence of stolen goods as a problem. Amazon takes a cut of every sale just like a fence. They have constructed their onboarding and process to "not know your customer" because they enjoy this revenue even though they must know their system is being heavily used for these illicit sales.
Blame the people stealing and the system that refuses to prosecute them.