Background

"The best thing I can tell you to do, ma'am, is to check all the pawn and secondhand stores."

Nobody likes this “check the stores” answer.

Victims don't like hearing it
Law enforcement doesn't like giving it
Businesses don't like the implication of wrongdoing

We think this is a problem worth solving.

For the victims:

Victims trust that local government is investing in the tools necessary to protect law–abiding citizens from the crime they experience most often. They pay their taxes and they want justice!

And they have the reasonable expectation that their belongings could be identified and returned. They tend to lose confidence when their local agency buys a helicopter, paints the patrol cars, and adds on to the police station . . . but comes up short when grandma’s wedding ring is lost in a burglary.

For law enforcement:

Detectives have too many cases that involve property — and no effective means of investigating them. They don't have time to visit all the possible outlets for stolen merchandise within their jurisdiction, and phone calls to neighboring agencies rarely produce results.

With many competing priorities and staffing challenges, collecting transaction records from local stores and entering them into a useful format leaves them months behind. Information is held in a database that has little chance of producing a match without an accurate serial number, which few victims are able to provide.

As a result, clearance rates remain remarkably low — never mind arrest and recovery rates. Performance is typically much lower than law enforcement finds acceptable.

For businesses:

Victims of crime often come into a pawn or secondhand store hoping to find their missing property. Despite his best efforts to help (compliance with all local laws, supplying all required transaction information to law enforcement, and cooperating in every way he can), the business is now dealing with an upset member of the community, whose frustration is quickly shifting from the criminal to the business. They wish local law enforcement agencies lack a better way to make use of the information he provides.

The Solution:

LeadsOnline provides a better way for investigators to solve crimes, for businesses to support their efforts, and for victims of crime to have hope for justice and a safer community.

The good news is it works!

We've received countless stories of wedding rings and laptop computers being found, identity theft cases solved, organized theft rings disbanded, and criminals locked up for a very long time.