The safe, back in its original corner of Sunline Pawn, now bolted to the floor and to the wall and to a second safe.Photo: Dana Kruger / Wazel News
A Sunline Boulevard pawn shop whose safe was stolen in a burglary last week has bought the safe back, from a man who brought it in on a hand truck and asked what it was worth.
Owner Gil Okafor, 58, told Wazel News he recognised the safe "the second it came through the door," by a dent in the top left corner that he had put there himself in 2019. He paid the man $600, took a copy of his ID, and watched him leave before "it all came together."
A locked safe is still a safe
The man, who gave his name as "Dennis, probably," told Okafor he had found the safe "in a ditch, sort of" and had not been able to open it. Okafor confirms the safe is still locked. He has the combination. He has not yet opened it, "because I want the police to see the face he made when I asked for his ID."
Police have the ID. They say the name on it is not Dennis, and the photo "is of a different person, though the beard is similar."
"I have been in this business thirty years. People have sold me my own watch. Nobody has ever sold me my own safe. I'm almost proud."
— Gil Okafor, Sunline Pawn
The dent. Mr. Okafor says he made it in 2019 'with a chair, long story.'
What was inside
Okafor says the safe contains the shop's weekend takings, two guitars' worth of paperwork and "a sandwich I'd been meaning to deal with." He opened it on Wednesday in front of two officers, who confirmed the contents and asked him to deal with the sandwich.
The $600 is being treated as a loss until Dennis is found. The safe is being treated as a safe, now bolted to the floor, the wall and a second, decoy safe that Okafor says is "full of the kind of thing you'd regret stealing."
Not the clown gang, this time
Asked whether the burglary was connected to the Coral Key break-ins, police said no: there was no balloon, no custard, and the thief "clearly did not know how to open a safe, which the clown gang, whatever else you say about them, does."
The clown gang's spokesman, reached by phone, said the gang had "no comment on safes" and asked whether this call would count as a denial. We told him it would.