Fence (criminal)
A fence, also known as a receiver, mover, or moving man, is an individual who knowingly buys stolen goods in order to later resell them for profit.
[1] Thieves who patronise fences are willing to accept a low profit margin in order to reduce their risks by instantly "washing their hands" of illicitly gotten loot (such as black market goods) and disassociating from the criminal act that procured it.
This process often relies on a legal business (such as a pawnshop, flea market, or street vendor) in order to "launder" the stolen goods by intermixing them with legally-obtained items of the same type.
Later laws further focused on receivers, especially the 1718 Transportation Act, which, together with other measures, made fences main felons and not simply accessories to other felonies.
Nonetheless, it was not easy to prove that a dealer knowingly accepted stolen goods, especially without the related theft event being fully cleared out.
[8] Therefore, given the difficulty of actually proving receiving in courts, common people, especially shopkeepers,[9] often preferred compounding, feeling that prosecuting was not worth it.
[12] The synergy between receiving, theft, and corruption, as well as official activities such as thief-taking or pawnbroking was a huge dynamic bond[clarification needed] where each element enhanced the others in a vicious circle.
However, overly bold receiving was his undoing,[14] as it provoked the English government to promote further laws against receiving and related activities, such as the Transportation Act in 1718, also known as "Jonathan Wild Act",[15] and its extension in 1720, which made returning goods for a fee a felony of the same importance and punishment as the crime (theft) related to the goods returned (which meant a capital offence in most cases, with raised potential reward for definitive evidence, from £40 to £140).
[16] Elizabeth Hitchen gave her inheritance money to her husband Charles in order to buy the Under City Marshal office for his plans.
Moll's activity as a thief relied on the protection and support of her governess, who also acted as a receiver for the goods stolen by her affiliates.
Sometimes, such as in the case of a silver inscribed mug stolen by Moll, she smelts metals, in order to avoid getting caught while re-selling.
[22] Local peasants and other members of the community became fences and hid criminal activities from officials, in exchange for goods or money from soldiers.
[20]: 175 In one example, an owner of a teahouse overheard the conversation between Deng Yawen, a criminal, and others planning a robbery and offered to help to sell the loot for a portion of the spoils.
[20]: 175 Animals were very valuable commodities within Ming China, and a robber could potentially sustain a living from stealing livestock and selling them to butcher-fences.
[20]: 175 In this way, itinerant barbers also served the role as a keeper of information that could be sold both to members of the criminal underground and to powerful clients.
[20]: 156 In contrast to women who required beauty to sell for a high price, children were sold regardless of their physical appearance or family background.
In the Zhejiang Province, local elites not only caused the dismissal of provincial commissioner, Zhu Wan, but also eventually "[drove] him to suicide".
[20] This was possible because fences often had an official and legal means of making a living, as well as illegal activities, and could threaten to turn bandits in to the authorities.
[20] Aside from simply buying and selling stolen goods, fences often played additional roles in the criminal underground of early China.
[20] Safe houses also included brothels and opium dens, as well as gambling parlors, and employees or owners of such institutions often functioned as harborers, as well as fences.
[26] These safe houses were located in places where there was a high floating population[clarification needed] and where people from a variety of social backgrounds interacted.
As well, selling stolen goods takes a great deal of time and effort (transaction costs), as the thief would have to try to contact a number of potential buyers and show them the merchandise.
The prices fences pay thieves typically depend both on norms and on legitimate market rates for the items in question.
Another way is by their level of involvement in buying and selling stolen goods; for some, fencing is an occasional "sideline" activity, while it is an economic mainstay for others.
[3] Research on fences shows that they view themselves as entrepreneurs, relying on networking with and patronage by prominent criminals to become successful in their word-of-mouth-based "wheeling and dealing."
On the other hand, e-fencing may describe transactions in which there is direct interaction between the original thief and the final purchaser, while the "intermediary" is an online platform.
On one hand, the platform's operators may be knowingly or recklessly permitting such activity (for instance in a darknet market) and thus might be thought of as a fence in a more traditional sense.
At the other extreme are intermediaries that are legitimate and respected platforms being used in defiance of their terms and conditions and in spite of aggressive and ongoing actions to interdict such illegal activities.
Crime rings steal and/or use stolen financial information to pay for in-demand items from retailers and then sell those items online, relying on the Internet's ability to reach buyers around the world and its anonymity; some theft rings even take pre-orders, confident that they can steal and/or fraudulently pay for whatever is currently in demand.
[31] Stolen financial information can also itself be e-fenced by using such data to purchase intangible goods and services on behalf of unsuspecting buyers.
