Police investigating a suspected organized theft ring at three Bloomington-Normal pawn shops got help from some of America’s largest retailers — which also were the victims of the alleged crimes.
The Home Depot, Walmart, Target and Dick’s Sporting Goods all suspect Monster Pawn’s owners of profiting from organized retail theft from their stores. The lengthy investigation — at least 17 months — began in part because of a tip from The Home Depot’s retail crime unit, which suspected Monster Pawn of buying stolen tools and other new, in-box merchandise and then selling them on eBay.
That’s laid out in court documents obtained by WGLT that show how investigators methodically built their case against Monster Pawn, which is still pending in court.
The investigation involved anonymous sources, 56 undercover buys and sting purchases on eBay with the help of Walmart and Home Depot. That led to the seizure in July 2024 of more than $310,000 in assets from Monster Pawn stores and bank accounts in McLean and Sangamon counties — plus 673 pounds of to-be-appraised silver coins, records show.
Seven people have been criminally charged in the case.
It's one of the biggest cases to emerge locally from the Illinois Attorney General’s Organized Retail Crime Task Force, first announced in 2021. That was followed by passage of legislation in 2022, backed by the retail industry, designed to combat a nationwide rise in coordinated retail theft. This included creating a new offense called “organized retail crime,” plus other measures to promote intelligence-sharing and prosecutions that cross county lines.
Retail theft is not a victimless crime, said Rob Karr, president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association,noting every stolen item represents lost sales tax revenue.
“That’s undercutting every government service that we rely upon,” said Karr, referring to things like law enforcement, roads, sewer and water. “We’re actually all victims of that.”
Among those charged are Monster Pawn’s owners — Edwin Pierce, Kathleen Pierce, and their son Everson Pierce — and four other people. Lawyers for the Pierces did not respond to a request for comment from WGLT. They’re due back in court in May in Springfield.
The court documents reviewed by WGLT are related to the July 2024 seizures that included Monster Pawn locations in Bloomington and Normal, Midwest Exchange in Bloomington, and additional Monster Pawn locations in Springfield. In the documents, authorities allege Monster Pawn was selling items online that were obviously stolen by “boosters” from retail establishments.
Here’s an example of how the alleged scheme worked, according to police and prosecutors:
Home Depot sells a cordless drill kit for $499. It’s allegedly stolen from a Home Depot store. The thief [aka booster] brings it to a pawn shop that buys it for $150. The pawn shop then lists it on eBay for $310. The booster and pawn shop make money. Home Depot doesn’t.
There are safeguards meant to prevent this from happening.
Sellers are required to show an ID and the pawn shop must ask how they got the item and assess whether it’s stolen. Pawn shops are supposed to report daily transactions in LeadsOnline, a nationwide clearinghouse police can use to search for possible stolen property.
Authorities allege that each Monster Pawn shop was failing to enter their transactions properly into LeadsOnline and that only around 27% of the items sold to Monster Pawn were entered.
“During the course of the [attorney general’s] investigation, Monster Pawn shop employees routinely purchased items that appeared to be stolen without making any or serious inquiries into how the seller obtained the item, failed to get an identification from the seller, and often failed to enter the purchase of the item correctly into LeadsOnline, or did not record the purchase at all,” authorities allege.
How the investigation worked
The court documents don’t explain exactly when the investigation began. The attorney general’s office received a tip from Home Depot about “Monster Pawn shops being involved in the purchase and sale of suspected stolen retail items,” according to court records.
The Home Depot estimated its loss of property bought and sold by Monster Pawn Shops at over $1 million since 2019.
In August 2023, an Illinois Department of Revenue agent received a tip from an anonymous source that claimed Monster Pawn was buying items stolen from Best Buy and selling them on eBay.
The investigation expanded from there. Investigators sent undercover law enforcement into Monster Pawn shops to sell purported stolen items and then traced the items to see if they were entered into LeadsOnline, and whether they showed up on eBay, records show.
Home Depot, Walmart, Target and Dick’s provided investigators with new items in their original packaging to be sold. There were 56 undercover sales between August 2023 and July 2024, records show.
“Investigators often attempted and succeeded in purchasing the items back from Monster Pawn shops through its online eBay seller page,” authorities wrote.
Several of the Monster Pawn defendants also face money-laundering charges. Prosecutors allege that a “review of Monster Pawn bank accounts shows a pattern of purchasing silver … as a method of money laundering the proceeds from the sale of stolen items on eBay.”
Authorities raided the Pawn Shop locations on July 23, 2024, as WGLT previously reported.
In McLean County, around $131,411 in assets were seized, including 673 pounds of silver and money from the stores and five bank accounts, records show. More silver bars were seized in Springfield.
“Also seized and recovered from every Monster Pawn brick and mortar store were approximately 8,000 individual, new-in-the-box items such as tools, video gaming equipment, video games, electronics, office supplies such as toner, batteries, and sporting good equipment that all appeared to be stolen from retail establishments such as Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart, and Dicks, and other retail stores,” authorities wrote.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s Organized Retail Crime Task Force is the first statewide, public-private collaboration of its kind in Illinois.
This kind of collaboration on retail theft is “light years” beyond what was happening before the 2021-22 changes, said Karr. It includes creation of the Illinois Organized Retail Crime Association that oversees a new intelligence-sharing platform used by retailers and police alike.
“A lot of times [police] looked at it as an isolated incident. We’re continuing to educate them more [because] you can’t do that. Peek under the sheets. It might be an isolated incident, but check,” Karr said. “Because chances are, if it’s not one of something, it might be connected to organized retail crime.”
