I ran into these guys a few years back. Tried to warn the guy that he was getting scammed but I could see he was already hooked into the thought that he was going to get around $3,000 of stolen stuff for a few hundred dollars.

[Link: remotecentral.com]

The thing is what they are doing is not illegal. It is not illegal to lie to a customer.
The stuff is not stolen ..it is just junk. If you go to the police with the license plate they just laugh at you. They have no sympathy that you got scammed when you were trying to buy stolen property.

This scam has been going on for at least 10 years. It has spread to other countries. It has its own Wiki page.

[Link: en.wikipedia.org]

And after all that ....they are still out there because there are plenty of people who are greedy and have no problem buying stolen property.