For the record both times were auto theft. One was in Davis CA and the other was in Los Angeles CA.

I never got a full story other than it was some larger operation where plenty of other things were recovered.

I think if you walked into a police station and said you had something stolen when very reliable tracking information and was able to convince a detective, they'd likely be very interested. By as cynical as you want but things like that are exactly why they took the job.

I'm pretty sympathetic to the defund movement but catching occupational criminals sounds pretty much exactly what I think the police should be doing

Usually you need a lot of information to justify a warrant and execute a sting, and it often involves more than one law enforcement organization.