New Law Allows Fenton To Finger Gold Thieves

Mike Duke, the proprietor of , 870 S. Highway Dr., Fenton, is pushing for a new gold standard in St. Louis County.

Duke worked with police in Fenton and the city's Board of Aldermen to achieve passage of a law regulating businesses that buy gold and other precious metals.

The new regulations will make it easier for police to find gold thieves and return stolen jewelry items to their owners.

"I've been pushing for this thing to pass for a long time," Duke said. "It's just stupid not to have a law like this."

Under the regulations in Fenton's new law, businesses that buy gold will be required to make a copy of a seller's driver's license, take a photograph of the items being purchased and fill out a receipt that includes the seller's name, address, driver's license number and phone number at the time of the transaction and hold the gold items for 48 hours before selling, trading or melting them down.

Duke, who also owns Missouri Gold Buyers businesses in Bridgeton, south St. Louis, Richmond Heights and Ellisville, says the regulations in the new law have been practiced in his businesses for years.

"99.9 percent of our business is housewives (selling their scrap gold jewelry)" Duke said. "That extra .9 percent is people we don't want to do business with. It just gives us a bad name."

Captain Jeff Bader, of the St. Louis County Police Dapertment's Fenton precinct, said a recent incident brought the problem of stolen jewelry into sharp focus. He said a local woman was the victim of a home burglary where several items of gold jewelry were stolen, including her mother's 100-year-old gold wedding ring. Bader said police officers ultimaterly visited Duke's business and searched through the photographs of items he had purchased in recent days. Sure enough, they found a photograph of the stolen jewelry, along with the seller's driver's license. The problem was that more than 48 hours had elepsed since the burglary and the items already had been melted down. Police had their suspect, but unfortunately for the woman, her jewelry was gone forever.

It's just this sort of incident that Duke wanted to address.

"We don't need the problem," he said.

Duke said he originally initiated the recording of the gold items his businesses purchase in south St. Louis, where he and the prosecuting attoney and the neighborhood alderman developed the law requiring photo evidence and a 48-hour hold.

Now he wants to see the law approved everywhere.

"I want all areas to do it," he said. "That's what I'm pushing for."

Duke said he currently is working with St. Louis County officials in an effort to have gold purchasing regulations instituted countywide.

One of the reasons for a countywide law is to provide law enforcement with a bigger range of possibilities when investigation jewelry thefts.

"Just because it's stolen in Fenton, doesn't necessarily mean it will be sold in Fenton," Duke said. "(The law) will provide the evidence neccesary to prosecute."