BACKGROUND: Stolen goods among the items sold over the Net
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By Mikko Paakkanen
"As and when new channels open up, you will always find rogues who make use of them", says Risto Karhunen, a crime prevention expert employed by the Federation of Finnish Insurance Companies. Karhunen says that online auction-houses are one possible means of shifting stolen goods, but the degree to which they are used has not been examined in any detail.
For example, the economic and property crimes section of the Helsinki Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division has not been investigating any larger groups of crimes in which Internet auction-rooms would have been used as a channel for fencing stolen goods, reports Det. Insp. Kari Niinimäki. Individual cases come to light now and then, adds Insp. Vesa Lilja from the Pasila police precinct.
According to Lilja, what has happened quite often is for instance that people who are active on certain niche interest-group pages and forums will discover "for sale" ads for items they have had stolen. In some respects this is precisely what occurred in the Oulu case: Apple enthusiasts were alert to a machine coming on sale.
Lilja also points out that stolen goods try to find a buyer on the Net through other channels than merely the virtual auction-houses.
Finland's largest online auction is Huuto.net. The portal's head of development Lari Lohikoski says that the sale of stolen goods has shown up on the Huuto.net pages, but that it is rare given the overall scale of the operation and the number of items on sale - around 400,000 in all.
"With volume like that, you are bound to get all sorts", notes Lohikoski.
The Huuto.net front page provides instructions and hints to avoid risks. Abuses are also kept to a minimum by a system of buyer and seller feedback, whereby users can rate the reliability of sellers and transactions in general.
As a general rule, online auction-houses deal in transactions between two individuals. The responsibility for the legal status of the products on sale rests squarely with the seller; the pages merely offer a market-place.
If something that is bought turns out to be stolen property, the purchaser can forfeit the item to the legal owner without compensation. He or she can also be subject to a fine.
If the buyer knows the goods to be stolen, then in Penal Code terms it is a question of receiving stolen goods, says Ari-Matti Nuutila, Professor of Criminal Law at Turku University. If the buyer has reason to suspect that the item may be stolen, then negligent receiving or aiding and abetting could come into consideration.
The question of when there is "reason to suspect" is decided by the courts. Doubts should be aroused for example by an inexplicably low price being requested for an item of value.
Huuto.net is part of the SanomaWSOY group of companies, to which Helsingin Sanomat also belongs.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 18.4.2006
More on this subject:
 Net sleuths expose dealer in stolen goods
Links:
Huuto.net (in Finnish, requires registration to participate)
MIKKO PAAKKANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
mikko.paakkanen@hs.fi
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