[Zagorath]

The thing is, it's not petty crime in the situation they described. If they're stealing from (or knowingly buying the stolen property of) a large number of people, that's now a significant illegal operation.

Yes it might not be trivial to prosecute, but we're not actually talking about petty theft done by random individuals where the effort isn't worth it. We're talking about major rings of thieves stealing millions of dollars worth of devices per year.