When you deal in stolen goods you have to allow time to pass for the hot stuff to cool off, ya' dig? If you've ever seen Heat or any other crime “crew” movie you know that you need a grizzled old white guy with a handlebar mustache who did hard time at “the shoe” (whatever that is) to fence the stuff. Hopefully it'll end up in a pawn shop in Vegas or, if you're lucky, overseas.

What you really don't want to do is to turn around and sell it back to the people you just allegedly stole it from.

But that's what authorities this week said happened:

In late July the Lancaster-based victims were browsing through Craigslist classifieds in an attempt to replace some of the stuff that was recently jacked from their home when, lo and behold, they see tattoo equipment that looks suspiciously like theirs.

Credit: LASD

Credit: LASD

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department is called.

A buy-back sting is set up. And, yep, cops allege the stolen tattoo equipment was recovered on Monday in South L.A.

The alleged seller, 40-year-old Dennis Hyde, was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen property.

But wait, there's more:

Wanting to check out his house in the 900 block of West 42nd Street, detectives got a search warrant.

There they claim to have found marijuana packaged for sale, a scale, other evidence of drug sales, and lots of stuff — electronics, jewelry, cameras, music equipment, believed to be … you guessed it … stolen.

Hayes was being held in lieu of $45,000 bail.

The victims getting at least some of their stuff back? Priceless.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

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