Jail Sale

For five months, Johnny's Thrift Shop was the most hassle-free store in Birmingham, paying fast prices for anything brought there and handed to the clerk behind the counter. There were the two young men, for example, who carted in a $600 color TV and a $300 VCR, plunked them down and accepted Johnny's $175 check for both. And then there was the fellow who parked a brand-new $15,000 Oldsmobile outside and gladly took $500 for it. "The car business is much more profitable than the stereo business," the seller earnestly explained. "How many can you use? One, two a day?"

There was just one little catch. The shop was a sting operation code-named Western Sizzler and run by Birmingham police, and the customers were thieves looking to make a quick buck on stolen goods. Johnny was Johnny Samaniego, 34, a squat, bearded undercover narcotics agent on loan from the Tuscaloosa police department. With his gift for gab, Johnny would lure the thieves into talking about their crimes and giving their names and addresses. "Where did you steal it?" Johnny would ask. Eager to brag, many would supply the full details, even showing off the tools they used. All the while, a video camera concealed behind the counter recorded it all.

Thieves were wary when the shop first opened for business. One customer, cutting his seventh deal with Johnny, paused and said: "You might be the Man." Replied Johnny: "You never know." But in time, the shop won the confidence of its clientele, with word spreading even to other states. On the advice of a cousin in Birmingham, one thief drove a stolen 1986 Buick Skylark / from a dealer's lot in Atlanta to Johnny's. He got $700, and Johnny got his name and telephone number. Says Charles Jordan, the Birmingham police sergeant who helped direct the operation: "After a while, greed takes over wisdom."

For a paltry $67,000 spread over 235 transactions, the shop in Birmingham's West End was able to rake in goods valued at some $2 million. On the list: 113 automobiles, four motorcycles, firearms, musical instruments, vacuum cleaners, window fans, chain saws, space heaters, clocks, credit cards, shoes, boots, digital weighing scales and an American flag a thief used to wrap booty.

Last week, after the shop had closed its doors and the sting ended, the arrests started. By Thursday, police had rounded up 37 of 65 suspects, a job made easier by names and addresses the gullible thieves had written at Johnny's request on the checks issued by the shop. The videotape, which can be used in court, was also valuable, showing what Police Chief Arthur Deutsch called "the face of crime."