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The purpose of this research is to examine the illegal profiteering of the pawnshop business and its relationship to regulation strategies. Content analysis and in-depth interviews were undertaken: 86 court cases (2000-2004) were analyzed and 5 pawnshop owners/workers, 2 customers and 2 police were interviewed. The results indicate that the pawnshop owners/workers took advantage of a loophole to evade the violation of laws by way of “dispute of debt”, “gaining profit from employee”, “getting good relationships with the police institute”, “cheating the borrowers”, “taking back the debt”, and so on. The pawnshop workers/employers gained the benefit, including 4 percent basic interest and 5 percent interest for the additional warehouse expenses, with a total of 9 percent interest, which was taken as the basis for calculation from the origin of this business. This leads to various kinds of profiteering such as “car is still being used, proof document loan”, “the pawnshop employees loan outside”, “valuable pawnshop license profit”, “receive expense by using other titles”, ”debt merger and transfer”, “use car loan,” and so on. The study argues that victim precipitation theory, the pawnshop workers/employers differential association theory, deviance subcultural theory, and the lack of regulation of the pawnshop business all arguably contribute to profiteering in the pawnshop business. Suggestions are made on how to improve the situation in the pawnshop business.
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