SAN JOSE — Burglary detectives are spearheading a crackdown on an array of San Jose pawnshops that in recent years have flourished unchecked as places to fence stolen property, police said.

Detective Sgt. Michael Montonye, who heads the San Jose Police Department’s property crimes unit, said criminals are taking advantage of police staffing shortages that have caused investigations of nonviolent burglaries to languish.

“It’s a perfect storm of all these things coming together,” Montonye said. “Between burglary crews coming down, you also have pawnshops and secondhand dealers who also know there’s no one watching them. No one has monitored them for years.”

With one sergeant and four detectives, SJPD’s property crimes unit is minuscule for a city of 1 million residents — and where property crimes top the list of the department’s crime complaints. Officers have to prioritize investigations amid an annual caseload hovering around 5,000.

But police have been empowered by a new state law mandating that pawnshops and secondhand dealers adhere to stricter licensing requirements and other regulations to curb the sale of stolen property.

In January, Montonye’s squad put together a task force aimed at enforcing the new regulations, which include registering with the state Department of Justice through its California Pawn and Secondhand Dealer system.

Police say the heightened scrutiny has yielded several cases of pawnshop owners suspected of knowingly accepting stolen property and trying to sell it quickly instead of allowing for the 30-day buyback period typically associated with pawned goods.

In May police arrested Shahrokh Shaw Roohparvar, 60, of Los Altos. He has been charged with 11 counts of possessing stolen property and acquiring stolen property for financial gain. Roohparvar ran a shop on The Alameda near downtown San Jose that went by the names “Silicon Valley Liquidate,” “Compucycle” or “US Tech,” according to police.

An undercover sting, aided by the Regional Enforcement Allied Computer Team and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, led to allegations that Roohparvar was selling stolen items on eBay. Montonye said the alleged crimes were especially brazen because there was apparently no attempt to obscure serial numbers, which allowed items to be swiftly identified as stolen.

Montonye added that a known serial burglar was frequently seen doing business at Roohparvar’s shop, and that Roohparvar eschewed official state forms for ones he created himself. Roohparvar did not obtain required identification for people pawning items at his business, Montonye.

A series of similar investigations are under way, Montonye said, and they have already had an impact on property crimes in the city, particularly in East San Jose. The sergeant said the area has seen a 50 percent drop in burglaries from June 2015 to this month.

“We’re interrupting their normal flow of conducting business with stolen property,” Montonye said. “If we can keep interrupting their business, we can cut down on the crime rate even more.”

Anyone with information about suspected illicit activity at city pawnshops and the businesses of secondhand dealers can contact Detective Sgt. Michael Montonye at 408-277-4401 or leave a tip with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-STOP (7867) or with svcrimestoppers.org.

Contact Robert Salonga at 408-920-5002. Follow him at Twitter.com/robertsalonga.