Ever wonder where stolen items end up? Click here to find out

When John Zentz saw the broken window on his 2005 Chevrolet Tahoe last week and discovered his GPS device gone, he was steamed.

But what happened to that GPS once it was in the criminal's hands?

Zentz, vacationing on Hilton Head Island when the incident occurred, ventured a guess.

"It probably ended up in a pawn shop somewhere ... or sold on the street," he said. "That's what I suspect."

According to police and pawn brokers, Zentz isn't far off.

"(Stolen items) are traded for narcotics, sold on the street for a fraction of their value and pawned at pawn shops," Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner said. "That's the general routine when it comes to stolen goods."

So how do pawn shops know whether the items people bring in are stolen?

"Knowing what is stolen and what isn't is impossible to tell," said Charlie Bell, owner of Port Royal Gun & Pawn. "We take this seriously, and we try to weed out the bad from the good."

Bell said it's a misconception that everything in a pawn shop is stolen. People pawn things for myriad reasons, he said, and sorting out the stolen from legitimate merchandise isn't easy.

To discourage thieves from hocking stolen goods, copies of all "pawn tickets" are given to local police departments to help officers locate stolen items. The tickets include the driver's license information of the person who pawned the item.

Tanner said he would like to create a regional system online so police from all over the state could search through pawn tickets to trace stolen goods.

"Pawning something is a lot of times a last resort for crooks," Bell said. "Most of the time, criminals will just trade them and (the items will) be moved out of state in a matter of hours ... or they'll sell them at flea markets or to a friend on the street for whatever that person is willing to pay."

Sometimes the price can be high.

A Bluffton High School student was charged last month with possession of stolen goods after he was caught with a laptop and GPS that were reported missing by Hargray, a Bluffton police report said. The student told police he bought the items from a friend for $70. The actual value of the items was $1,050, the report said.

When items as varied as cars, GPS devices, laptops and cell phones are stolen, a description and the serial number of the item are turned in by police to the FBI's National Crime Information Center. Without that serial number or an identification sticker, Tanner said, getting those items back to the owner isn't likely even if they are recovered.

Keeping a list of serial numbers or placing identifying marks that can be described to investigators generally is the best way to get stolen items returned, Tanner said.

Another problem is that selling stolen goods has gone high tech.

With the advent of online auction sites such as eBay.com and the classified advertising site craigslist.org, smash-and-grab criminals have found high-tech outlets where they can unload stolen wares.

Representatives from the online sites have called the misuses unacceptable and say they are working on ways to avoid having stolen goods for sale.

"Something stolen from Beaufort County can end up in California fairly quickly," Tanner said. "Sites like those have changed the dynamics of theft a lot over the past five to 10 years."

Zentz said he doesn't expect to get his GPS back.

"I don't think I'll ever see that again," he said. "I'll just have to buy a new one and take steps to keep it safer."