Pawn shop accused of buying stolen goods
Employees, owner charged with criminal solicitation, conspiracy
Police say the owner and employees of We Buy It pawn shop on East Central were buying it all right — stolen goods, that is.
Aaron Sheridan, 28, Paul Skersick, 31, and Fatu Ulale Jr., 27, were arrested Monday night and are each charged with criminal solicitation and conspiracy.
The men will be released on their own recognizance. None of them have a criminal history.
Ulale is a former University of New Mexico football player.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, an undercover operation by the Albuquerque Police Department’s Organized Crime Unit determined the three were regularly buying items for the pawn shop, located on Central near Louisiana, that were obviously stolen.
Gilbert Gallegos, an APD spokesman, said police are now pursuing racketeering charges against Sheridan, the owner.
He said officers found between $5,000 and $10,000 worth of stolen items but did not say if the items were stolen from businesses or homes.
By Tuesday morning, the store was closed and the shelves and display cases were empty. Sheridan,
Skersick and Ulale were still in jail Tuesday evening.
We Buy It, also known as Axis Global Corp., opened in 2016 and since then police say they have talked to many shoplifters who said they or their associates would steal things from stores to sell to employees there.
Detectives say although a lot of people were seen going in and out of the shop nearly every day, they seldom reported transactions to the “leadsonline” database — a database used to determine whether stolen items are showing up at pawn shops. Gallegos said, per city ordinance, pawn shops are required to report all firearms and all items worth more than $10 that they buy from individuals.
When the shop was closed for an annual inspection earlier this year, detectives say they saw multiple people coming to the door apparently trying to buy drugs.
So in September, an undercover detective worked with Home Depot to set up a sting.
Home Depot supplied brand new tools in unopened packages worth nearly $1,000 for the undercover detective to sell.
At We Buy It, Skersick bought the tools for $180, according to the complaint.
Then, the detective said, Skersick wrote down the name and product number of a different saw and asked if the undercover detective could get that item that day.
When the detective returned a short time later — acting shady about how he got there and saying he had a friend “run interference” while he took the tools from Home Depot — Skersick and Sheridan agreed to buy the saw from him, according to the complaint.
“Paul then stated ‘keep coming through, everyday’ and ‘keep doing what you’re doing,’” the detective wrote in the complaint. Detectives complied, repeating the operation at least three times.
Craig Aldrich, whose family owns the Jewelry Repair Service a couple of doors down from the now vacant pawn shop, said he would frequently see many people going in and out of building.
He said he learned of the criminal enterprise when his father told him police were raiding the business Monday evening.
“We’ve been here 45 years,” Aldrich said. “We’ve seen everything that goes on on Central.”