STANWOOD — Heartbreaking and head-scratching.
That’s how Sno-Isle Libraries spokesman Ken Harvey described a series of recent thefts from the Stanwood branch. About 200 library DVDs were stolen, and the thievery went on for more than a year.
Some $2,000 of merchandise went missing, Stanwood Police Chief Rick Hawkins said. The thieves reportedly were selling the movies to a local pawn shop for 25 cents apiece.
The trouble was discovered when a library patron saw DVDs with Sno-Isle barcodes at the pawn shop. The patron on Nov. 21 alerted the manager of the Stanwood branch, who paid a visit to the shop, just a few blocks away.
After a conversation, the pawn shop allowed the library manager to take with him 25 DVDs with apparent Sno-Isle markings to check against inventory records.
Of those, 24 were listed in the system as “missing off the shelf,” officials said. When the library removes an item from its system, the barcode is rendered useless. That wasn’t the case for the recovered movies.
Still, Hawkins said, there are a variety of movie rental services in operation these days, and the different markings and barcodes can be confusing.
State law governs the time that pawn shops can hold property, and how much paperwork is required. Because of the time frame for the thefts, much of the relevant documentation has been purged.
Investigators have no leads, and the records that were recovered don’t provide much detail, such as the title of the film and whether it had any barcodes. Movies are different than say, a chainsaw with an engraved serial number, Hawkins said.
“This has been going on for some time,” he said. He believes at least one DVD had been purchased and resold to the pawn shop again. The new owner would not have known it was stolen.
The pawn shop returned all of the library-owned material, he said, and took a financial loss by doing so.
“They understand now what to look for, these barcodes from the library,” he said.
Officials still are going through the available records. Anyone with information is asked to call the Stanwood Police Department at 425-388-5290.
The crime could be misdemeanor theft, or trafficking in stolen property, a felony, Hawkins said. It might have involved one person, or a few people working together. The thefts were limited to the Stanwood branch.
There was a ring of organized library thefts in south Snohomish County a few years ago, Harvey said. Eventually, the business reselling the books became suspicious.
The library is considering new security measures, where line-of-sight is an issue in nearly every branch.
“They’re looking at ways they can increase the level of monitoring of activity around the DVD collection,” he said.
Library DVDs are immensely popular in Snohomish County, including at the Everett Public Library. Sno-Isle patrons checked out DVDS 2.1 million times in 2014 — a jump from 1.4 million times in 2008.
There is little to no profit for library thieves, Harvey said.
“When a person steals from the library, they’re actually stealing from everybody else,” he said. “They’re stealing from their neighbors and the kids down the block. They’re taking from others to enjoy what the community as a whole has purchased.”
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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