The Wilmington Police Department is getting online with a web-based program that will enhance its ability to track and recover stolen property, officials announced Thursday.

The software, called LeadsOnline.com, was made possible by a $13,000 donation from Allen Perry of Perry's Emporium. It connects police departments across the country by allowing detectives to insert serial numbers and the descriptions of stolen merchandise and see whether they have been sold at, say, a pawn shop or scrap yard. They can also the name and description of a suspected thief and find out where that criminal has sold property.

The system is also linked into eBay, so if a person's property winds up being sold online police can track it down and return it to them.

Before this new system, detectives would have to physically collect paper tickets from each individual pawn shop and soft through them by hand, comparing merchandise to reports of stolen property. And then, their search was confined to New Hanover County.

"Now, if your property gets stolen in Los Angeles and winds up in a pawn shop here, we'll be able to find it and get it back to you, and vice versa," said Wilmington Police Chief Ralph Evangelous. "It's an investigative aid for us to track down some of thieves out there who are victimizing our residents."

The donation by Perry will fund a years subscription to the service. After that, the police department will likely have to absorb the cost into its budget, officials said.

Copyright 2012 - Star-News, Wilmington, N.C.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service