Intellectual Property Law

do cops ever recover stolen property?

my car was broken into, and for the electronics stolen, i gave the police the serial numbers. does it ever really help?

Public Comments

1. Sometimes, but with low dollar and electronics, it's hard to "find" them, car insurance should cover replacement.
2. Depends. My son's bike was stolen a year ago, it was recovered in Feb during routine pawn shop check by the cops and we got it back.
3. Knowing the serial numbers will really help. Most people don't know/remember them. But most of the time, no...the merchandise is either kept or sold for drugs. You may get lucky and have your stuff sold to a pawn shop where the shop must keep records.
4. I think it does help. Just not all the time. When my house was broken into, I gave the cops the descriptions of everything taken and less than a week later they called me because they thought they found my camcorder. It turned out to belong to another family that got robbed, but yes I do think they recover things that get stolen.
5. sometimes they do it depends how stupid the theif was and if they can catch him and get a confession out of him and the theif tell them were it is
6. definitely though not immediately. it depends upon the shrewdness of cops too
7. Yes, giving them the serial numbers does help because if they come upon some property they seized during a search warrant, car search, etc. they will check the serial numbers. When you first file the report, they in put the serial numbers into a database of stolen items, and when the run the found property against that database, it'll show up.
8. Yes a lot of the time it helps
9. Normally not, but if you actually get a legal pawn shop ( and sadly most are not from my experience) the pawn shop reports the serials numbers. and sometimes it just happens in luck, they stop a person speeding and in the car is stolen property.
10. I'm starting to wonder that myself...my cadillac was stolen last year and i have'nt heard a word on it yet.
11. Sometimes, my best guess is you have about a one in four chance of getting your things back. If you do get them back, it may be broken, or damaged in some way.
12. my car was stolen..like uhm..5 yrs ago? n never got it back