Monroe pawn shop probe

Samvel Grigoryan was the business owner of two successful pawn shops by the time he was in his early 20s.

One Stop Pawn Shop operated at 19002 Lenton Place in Monroe, until doors were closed around the end of 2016, according to a search warrant affidavit. Grigoryan reopened as NW Gold Buyers in a Highway 99 strip mall in Lynnwood in 2017. He still had dedicated regulars — some who would visit him more than once a day — and some kept coming while he didn’t have a storefront.

Merchandise came in so fast he started conducting deals aftre hours while still in the Sky Valley, according to the search warrant. He was allegedly being handed garbage bags full of goods. Some customers walked away with hundreds of dollars in cash.

Monroe Police estimate Grigoryan took hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen goods, and he remains under investigation for first-degree attempted trafficking of stolen property, however, charges have not yet been filed.

The streak of alleged trafficking ended Friday, March 30, when he was escorted from his new store into the backseat of a Monroe Police car, according to the warrant. The arrest ended a two-year investigation, headed by Officer Nathan Erdmann, into Grigoryan’s business practices, which officers say simply were not traditional for a pawn shop.

Erdmann had warned Grigoryan he was being watched; it was suspected the pawn shop owner knew the products he was working with had not been acquired legally, according to the warrant. Erdmann told Grigoryan stores in Monroe were cleaned out of the products he was buying due to theft.

“I told him that if he was not already closing down his business I would be coming after him and find some way to charge him, because no reasonable person could look at the things he was buying and not know it was stolen,” according to Erdmann in the warrant.

Law enforcement raided NW Gold Buyers and found thousands of dollars worth of new tools, bottles and bottles of dietary supplements, gift cards, allergy medicines, pregnancy tests and hair loss treatments, according to the warrant. The confiscated cache was taken back to the Monroe Police Department as evidence, and officers began the task of recording the haul.

Erdmann said a large cardboard box containing Allegra was valued at nearly $6,000 by itself. There were dozens more to be filled. The evidence is valued at around $70,000, and investigators believe Grigoryan took in thousands more in stolen merchandise during the two-year investigation.

One Stop Pawn Shop first came under scrutiny in early 2016. Erdmann got a call from a Lowe’s Home Improvement loss prevention associate, who reported a Dyson vacuum had been stolen from the store, according to the warrant. The staff member was also concerned about rumors that a pawnshop near Fred Meyer off U.S. Highway 2 was taking shoplifted retail.

Erdmann would eventually piece together that Grigoryan’s clientele were often drug addicts, who repeatedly stole from local businesses, according to the warrant. He started checking Leads Online, a website where pawn shops can legally record what product they’ve purchase or pawned. He found one woman, who he had spoken to on a number of occasions and knew was unemployed, homeless and addicted to heroin, had pawned a Dyson vacuum the same day it was stolen from Lowe’s, according to the warrant.

Dozens of other testimonies Erdmann heard firsthand or secondhand from people who allegedly brought stolen items to Grigoryan began to illustrate a pattern, according to the warrant. The owner would not ask questions, even if security devices were still on an item.

Monroe Police worked with undercover agents nearly 10 times — during and after hours — to see if Grigoryan was taking in the stolen products they suspected, according to the warrant. Stores like Fred Meyer and Walmart would donate items for the agents to sell, the majority of which Grigoryan reportedly ended up taking. He was also allegedly witnessed being handed full bags of packages from clients, and was seen taking similar bags into his business early in the morning.

Erdmann continued to check Leads Online, where he saw Grigoryan would report a higher payout than the undercover agent received, according to the warrant. In some cases he would allegedly record fewer items than he’d acquired.

Grigoryan would usually pay customers 20 percent of the retail value of new merchandise, according to the warrant. That would be close to 30 percent of what he could sell it for through online websites like eBay or Amazon. At one point a witness told Erdmann that Grigoryan’s accounts were shut down because he could not prove where the items were coming from that he was selling, according ot the warrant.

Two suspects in organized retail theft related to the investigation allegedly relayed they had similar interactions.

“I asked if Sam ever asked where the product came from, and they state that he (Sam) wasn’t stupid, and had to know where it was coming from, but that he never asked because he did not want to know,” according to Erdmann in the warrant.

Grigoryan had family members involved in day-to-day operations, according to the warrant. His father, Boris, was seen in the store and his uncle, Grigoriy Kocharyan, helped out more often. Earlier this year Erdmann obtained permission to track Grigoryan’s white Mercedes.

The GPS allowed Erdmann to find out the location of the new store, in unincorporated Lynwood, according to the warrant. Shortly after, the officer obtained the search warrant that allowed law enforcement to raid the business.

Erdmann said Grigoryan was cooperative during the arrest. The Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office states it is awaiting the conclusion of the investigation to determine charges. He was released on bail, according to Monroe Police administrative director Debbie Willis.