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Comment by INTPenis | Hacker News Reader

I have no idea but I remember the Sopranos episode where Christopher's father in law owns a hardware store and sells fenced goods out of it.

It's not hard, but the owner can get done for it of course.

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That seems like the mostly likely way, at least for the new items stolen from retail. Trying to sell on craiglist/FB marketplace doesn't seem like it would scale. An unscrupulous hardware store owner could mix the stolen goods in with their stock to pad their margins. The tools could also be used as stock for 3rd party seller on Amazon.

The Amazon marketplace seller is what I thought would be the most used route. Selling overseas would require hardware changes with the plugs I would think which would probably not be something they're willing to do. Unless it's common to use adapters or have people make that mode themselves as part of the "but it was cheap"???

Amazon marketplace is one of the best fences of all time.

> Selling overseas would require hardware changes with the plugs

Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, and a few other Central/South American countries can plug these tools right into the wall.

For whatever reasons, my mind equates overseas with Europe and even Eastern Europe more specifically when it comes to trading in illicit wares. In my mind, any where in the Americas just isn't overseas.

But you are absolutely right in that a lot of stolen items do end up in that part of the world.

None of those countries are overseas from the US.

Maybe there's a case to be made for Venuzeuela and Colombia because of the Darien Gap, but that's pushing it.

You seem to be ignoring concavity.

China exports lots of stuff to the USA and those containers go back empty. They can easily be filled up with stolen iPhones and catalytic converters for recycling, so that they aren’t all empty.

Power tools probably not though.

I thought the empties carried all of the stolen cars to their new homes.

That’s way too much trouble, and Chinese customs is really serious about their 100% tariff for DIY car imports. Stolen iPhones and cats are much easier to smuggle in, and have little value outside of Chinese recyclers.

You seem to think that a ship can't pull into a different port in a different country on the way back to China.

Also a lot of power tools are battery operated, chop saws, skill saws, sds drills, etc. All you'd need for overseas is a charger.

I bet most of those chargers operate on 90-250 VAC 50-60Hz since they're switching supplies. You'd just need an adapter.

Amazon comingled inventory would be the perfect vehicle for the perfect crime. They can’t even tell who shipped what, it’s basically like a cryptocurrency tumbler but for real world goods!

In fact it already is, lots of stuff is stolen and sold this way.

I just read (by audiobook) two great fiction works by Colson Whitehead that include some of these ideas, Crook Manifesto then is prequel Harlem Shuffle.

Great stuff.

Nitpicking: Crook Manifesto is the sequel to Harlem Shuffle, which came out years earlier. There's a third installment planned.

Ah, yes. I didn’t know about the third planned. CM I thought was brilliantly written. Just a joy to follow down each little flashback.

Yeah there was a camera store in SF busted for doing the same.

https://sfist.com/2021/12/21/tenderloin-camera-shop-was-fron...

It was selling stolen clothing. Odd that it wasn't stolen cameras.

I think I actually visited that store once or twice (before the bust) and it seemed like a nice little shop, though I didn't see how it could stay in business. I guess now I know.

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