SEATTLE — A 46-year-old Auburn man has been sentenced to prison for trafficking in stolen goods and possession of child pornography, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Aleksandr Pavlovskiy pleaded guilty in October 2021, following a lengthy investigation by the FBI and the Auburn Police Department.
The investigation began in the summer of 2018, when an Auburn police detective noticed a large number of stolen goods being sold at pawnshops owned and operated by Pavlovskiy.
State and federal law enforcement served search warrants on Pavolvskiy’s home, cars and business locations in July 2019.
Forensic analysis revealed more than 20,000 images and videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct on electronic devices that had been taken from Pavolvskiy.
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“The investigation began through the patient, dedicated work of an Auburn Police detective, who reached out to the FBI. It is through this sort of teamwork that we can root out all manner of crimes,” said U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. “While the stolen property case is what brought us here, the possession of child pornography demonstrates the damage Mr. Pavlovskiy inflicted on the larger community.”
According to records filed in the case, Pavlovskiy operated two pawnshops between 2013 and 2016 — Thrift Electro in Renton and Innovation Best in Kent.
Pavlovskiy reportedly directed the stores’ employees to pay shoplifters cash for stolen retail goods, with some of the items coming from delivery drivers who would steal packages to sell to the two shops.
In 2016, Pavlovskiy established a warehouse in Kent where employees would store and repackage the stolen goods for resale. Between January 2017 and July 2019, Pavlovskiy and his employees shipped hundreds of thousands of items to purchasers on eBay and Amazon, generating between $1.5 million and $3.5 million.
Pavlovski was sentenced to serve 24 months on the child pornography count and 48 months for trafficking in stolen property — for a total of six years in prison, with the sentences to run consecutively.
He has also been sentenced to 15 years of supervised release. He will be required to register as a sex offender and pay $12,000 in restitution to his sexual abuse victims.
Six of the 65 known sexual abuse victims requested restitution and will each receive at least $2,000 to help defray the costs of their ongoing mental health treatment and for other crime-related expenses.
The stolen property recovered in the investigation is being returned to the retailers from whom they were originally stolen.
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