By Ivy Anderson
February 6, 2019
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Over the past few weeks, multiple pawn shops throughout Huntsville have been dealing with the Cosley brothers.
The Madison County Sheriff’s Office says the two men have been stealing credit cards, buying expensive lawn gear over the phone and making money from it.
“Their intent was to steal credit cards when they had an opportunity to buy equipment that they could turn around real quick and then take the money, and use the money probably for more illegal activity,” said Lt. Donny Shaw.
Shaw says the men have been taking the equipment to pawn shops throughout town.
Buster’s Pawn Shop’s pawnbroker Angela Huffman says the brothers came into her store and they bought two lawn mowers from them.
“They walked into our pawn shop and they said we have a zero turn and a push mower we would like you to look at to see if you’d be interested in buying,” said Huffman.
Buster’s Pawn Shop bought the lawn mowers and went about their normal routine of checking the men’s identification, looking at the bill of sale and taking pictures of the men.
Then a few weeks later they got a call from the sheriff’s office telling them to hold the lawn mowers because they had been bought with a stolen credit card.
“And we were shocked because he had the bill of sale, he had everything in order,” said Huffman.
Shaw said on in early January the Mobile Police Department found Nicholas Cosley and arrested him.
“We went down to Mobile and brought him back to Huntsville and placed him in jail on the 13th of January,” said Lt. Shaw.
But the other brother, Nathan Cosley, was never caught. Nicholas is now out on bond.
“One was booked in Madison County but released on bond which it kind of makes you mad because you’re like, ‘okay, you had the money to bond out. Just like that, but you don’t even care that me, us, and another pawn shop is out of $2,500,” said Huffman.
Huffman says the Cosley brothers have been to other states besides Alabama.
“They have been doing this across three states. Mississippi, Georgia and us, and they’ve hit 19 pawn shops,” said Huffman.
“I think the unfortunate loss in this is probably going to be the pawn shops who had been taken unaware of these two guys that stole this equipment,” said Shaw.
And Huffman agrees. She says it will take her shop a while to recover from this.
“When you lose $2,500 in one swipe, you basically have to sell double that to make it up. So it takes a little while for mom and pop pawn shops like us and the ones around Huntsville to recover from that kind of hit,” said Huffman.
The Madison County Sheriff’s Office says they believe Nathan Cosley has returned to his home in Michigan.
Huffman says she hopes both of the Cosley brothers are given justice for hurting these mom and pop pawn shops.
Source: https://whnt.com/2019/02/06/stolen-credit-cards-have-been-used-at-local-pawn-shops/