Pawn Shop Owner Guilty Of Buying Millions Of Dollars Of Stolen Goods
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Larry Leonard, 62, was recently indicted for buying things that were stolen. Leonard was an owner of Society Hill Loan and K&A Money Loan Pawnbrokers, both in Philadelphia, and Lou’s Jewelry and Pawnshop in Wilmington, Delaware. From 2019 through 2019 his pawn shops bought items that he knew were stolen. Leornard just entered a guilty plea this week to those crimes.
Drug dealers don’t take credit cards. They deal in cash only. Drug addicts have a small supply of cash and they augment that buy stealing. Breaking into parked cars, breaking into houses even robbing people. That $189.00 pair of binoculars a bird watcher had in their vehicle would be bought by a fence dealing in stolen goods. for maybe $35.00. The fence would then sell it for $125.00. Everyone is making money off of the back of the victim.
Leonard purchased from drug addicts and professional thieves millions of dollars’ worth of expensive items, including high-end electronics, power tools, electric toothbrushes, and vacuums – all stolen from big-box retail stores such as Walmart, Home Depot, Rite Aid, and Target. Leonard, and co-conspirators working at his direction, paid the thieves a fraction of the retail value of the stolen goods – in cash – and then sold those items on eBay for profit.
Authorities said $19 million in stolen merchandise via the eBay storefront “societyhillloan,” shipping the stolen merchandise from Society Hill Loan in Philadelphia to customers across the country. In addition to the more than $19 million in eBay sales, millions of dollars of stolen items, primarily high-end electronics, were sold directly to third-party individual wholesalers.
August 25, 2026 is Lenard’s sentencing date. He could get as much as 45 years in prison.