Stolen property convictions at least at the local level primarily come from stings where police come in with property that they describe as "boosted" or in similar terms and then once the sale is completed they arrest the store owner. Amazon being online is obviously immune to this kind of police work. As long as Amazon removes the seller once they become aware something is wrong they are probably not breaking any laws. Some states are trying to pass laws to make ecommerce platforms vet sellers more but I doubt this will make a difference because it is not hard to make fake invoices.

So, you think that if pawn shops and the like required thieves to fill out a webform and mail stolen property in to be resold, like on Amazon, then the shop owners would be immune from prosecution? That doesn't seem plausible to me.

The reality is that Amazon breaks the letter and spirit of the law. (Depending on jurisdiction) laws against trafficking stolen property do not require that the police catch you red handed in a sting, the law doesn't even require that you actually do know you are selling stolen property - you can be charged if you had a reckless disregard for selling stolen property. The spirit of the law is that selling stolen property makes theft more profitable and that will mean more theft which is bad so let's not sell stolen property. Amazon is obviously providing a way for thieves to profit.

Again, repeated violations of the letter and spirit of the law reported in major newspapers, and no criminal consequences for Amazon. Do you think if your local paper was repeatedly writing stories about how Pawn Shop X was helping thieves profit, that local police and prosecutors would just shrug and point to that webform + mail setup? I don't.

Even if you couldn't get a "slam dunk" case going after corporate leadership for this, you could try. Amazon has actually violated the letter and spirit of the law so it would be fair to bring a case against them. If the jury acquits, then wait until you find evidence of the next theft ring reselling on Amazon and bring new charges.

Even without a conviction I don't think corporate leadership would accept facing a jury trial once a month with the possibility of a conviction and prison time. Instead, Amazon would substantially improve protections on reselling stolen property - which is the desired outcome.

> So, you think that if pawn shops and the like required thieves to fill out a webform and mail stolen property in to be resold, like on Amazon, then the shop owners would be immune from prosecution? That doesn't seem plausible to me.

Not immune, just saying that the way police traditionally approach stolen property cases basically requires the suspect to be on tape acknowledging receiving stolen property. The reason they do that is because is the law requires them to show knowledge or that a reasonable person would know the property is stolen. Unless they find an email where someone in the company is notified that a seller is selling stolen property and doesn't do anything about they probably don't have a criminal case. What they could do is sue, get a "consent decree" and as part of the settlement force Amazon to implement more rigorous seller identification or something like that. But I doubt any Amazon employees are going to jail over this.

Amazon is not knowingly selling stolen items, at least not in the sense meant by the law.