SOUTHERN COLORADO — A two-day raid continued on Thursday as multiple law enforcement agencies invest Top Dollar Pawn, a chain story in Pueblo and Colorado Springs.
The Grand Jury Indictment released by the 4th Judicial District Attorney's office reveals former employees of the pawn shops claim the owners knew they were selling stolen items, but chose to sell them anyways.
"Ultimately you just kind of go... What the heck?" said Reed Robins, a former pawn shop owner in Colorado Springs.
Robins fulfilled his lifelong dream of owning a pawn shop when he opened Altitude Pawn for roughly eight years. He says the stigma that pawnshops are "seedy" is a misconception.
"Pawnshops are actually really quite highly regulated in most cases. I mean, anything a pawn shop takes in they have to have a, you know, description, serial numbers, things like that. You have to have an ID, fingerprint for everybody."
The Indictment says the owners "engaged in a pattern of buying and selling stolen property sold to them by boosters who stole those items from various retail stores."
Walt Mauro, Mischa Jargowski, Jack Jargowski, Daria Mauro each face 29 felony charges in association with the investigation:
The court document also claims the owners used laundered money to continue their criminal operation.
