A 425-foot-long, 20-foot-high mural inspired by Lotería, a Mexican board game not dissimilar from Bingo, casts a sprawling shadow over the massive gravel parking lot of Swap-O-Rama, a mega-flea market that resides a few blocks north of Davis Park on Chicago's South Side. Every Monday the site is barren; most other days, however, it bustles with activity as sellers, swappers, and buyers iron out spur-of-the-moment deals. Just over a year ago, it was here that Portugal the Man's stolen gear changed hands. Thanks to the swift work of the Chicago Police Department, the band was informed a few days after being robbed that much of their gear had found its way into the mitts of South Side mechanic Juan Decampo, a petty thief who confessed to having bought the band's gear at the Swap-O-Rama despite knowing it was stolen. An investigation into the original robbery remains ongoing. And while some of the band's pinched items were recovered at Decampo's apartment — and subsequently returned to the band — several items remain missing.

In the aftermath of the Chicago theft, Portugal the Man, Carothers says, often wondered what they could have done differently to prevent its occurrence. It's a question many bands now find themselves contemplating: What can we do to protect ourselves from instrument theft?

"I don't know, dude," admits Kids These Days' bassist Lane Beckstrom, who recalls a recent incident in which a pedal board and laptop were taken out of their van while the band were recording Los Angeles. "We have chains on our trailer. We have all kinds of locks on our trailer. You never leave your shit in the van anymore. Even if you're going into a restaurant for five minutes, you take your backpack out of the van."

"You do whatever you possibly can," adds Carothers, still searching for answers. "You could have an alarm system; you could have the Club; you could have a LoJack. You do all these things." Portugal, prior to being ripped off in Chicago, had even gone to extremes to protect their gear: They'd regularly have band members sleep in shifts in the van. They ultimately stopped this tactic, however, when they realized the inherent danger it posed after they were robbed at gunpoint while on watch one night in Madrid.

Vasquez is now in the business of self-protection, above all else. After being robbed, the musician bought a knife. "It's super illegal and crazy looking," he adds. "Its got a skull crusher on it."

It's the "price per pound" that thieves can fetch for a used instrument, says Rich Holtzman, whose company The Artists Organization, in addition to managing Portugal, oversees the careers of artists such as Soundgarden, Chromeo, Blood Diamonds, and The Joy Formidable. Holtzman also believes the fact that many instruments actually increase in value over time makes them an appealing steal. "The resell market [for instruments] is pretty awesome," he explains. "If you're stealing car stereos, the market for used car stereos isn't all that good. But the market for a used guitar only goes up."

In theory, though, stolen instruments should be difficult to unload. After all, each instrument is marked with a unique serial number that secondhand buyers, such as pawn shops or musical instrument retailers, are legally required to cross-reference with a seller's driver's license. States are ramping up their efforts against the sale of stolen merchandise as well. In Illinois, for example, legislators passed a law that requires the identifying of material of all used instruments, whether bought or sold, to be logged into a central database.

New York and California have similar laws in the books. Prominent musical instrument resellers in both states explain that it's standard protocol to file a police report and run the serial numbers to verify the instrument isn't stolen. And as Dan Deuhorn, the owner of Sherman Oaks' California Vintage Guitars, says, an instrument may even be held up to 30 days for investigation before any money changes hands. "If somebody has an original receipt or it's somebody I know real well and I know the history of the guitar, I don't do that," he says. "But if there's any question at all, we have to run the police report and hold it for 30 days." Deuhorn is abiding by the California law under the Business & Professions Code, which, in their manual for becoming a "secondhand dealer or pawnbroker," states that all secondhand dealers shall retain an item for 30 days, during which time an item must be made available for "inspection by an police officer or employee designated by the chief of police or sheriff."

The Los Angeles Police Department has even gone so far as to have a four-man task force, dubbed the Pawn Section, designated to monitor the activities of secondhand shops. As it states on their website, the unit's mission is "of recovering stolen property and identifying those suspects committing the crimes."

In New York, Article 5 of the New York General Business Laws states that all secondhand dealers and pawnbrokers must keep records of all transactions "in good condition and in an orderly fashion for at least a period of six years" and that such books shall be "open to the inspection of the attorney general, the state comptroller, the mayor or local licensing authority, all judges of the criminal courts, the superintendent of police, police inspectors, captains of police and police justices of such cities, or any or either of them, or of any person who shall be duly authorized in writing for that purpose by any or either of them, and who shall exhibit such written authority to such collateral loan broker."

Fran Pensa, vice president of Rudy's Music in midtown Manhattan, adds that filing a police report with a description of the guitar, including its serial number, has been standard procedure for many years.

In Illinois, the Illinois Pawnbrokers Regulation Act, which went into effect July 2010, states that "an accurate account and description … of all the goods, articles and other things pawned or pledged … and the name and residence of the person making such pawn or pledge shall be printed, typed, or written in ink in the record book." Pawn shops, in particular, are also required to log "a legible and exact copy" of all transactions to their local police department by noon the day after sale. Yet, it ultimately remains in the discretionary control of a store's employee to follow these laid-out guidelines. An employee at McCabe's Guitar in Santa Monica, California, says because buying used guitars is not a major revenue stream for the store, they don't always hold steadfast to legal procedure. "We used to do that," she says, "but it's such a small fraction of our business that we don't always now. Occasionally I get a driver's license and that sort of thing." When money is on the table, all bets are off.