FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — The Fort Wayne Police Department is celebrating after Detective Joseph Lyon informed staff that he had surpassed the $2 million mark in property recovered within the Property Crimes Division. Beginning with the Pawn Detail in 2011, Det. Lyon started his career in the division. The Pawn Detail is a specialized, stand-alone unit within the Property Crimes Division of the Investigative Support Division. It is solely operated by Det. Lyon. By Jan. 22, 2018, he reached his $1 million mark in recovery. Lyon says when he first started his job, he had to rebuild relationships with local businesses like pawn shops, second-hand stores, gold buyers, and ecoATMs. "If we are gonna have a hope of solving some of these crimes, we gotta have some help, and the pawn shops help us with that by providing that information as they are required to," Det. Lyon said. "We have gotten to the point now where the shops call me before they even do the upload to let me know that they have taken something suspicious in". The City of Fort Wayne has an ordinance that requires these businesses to report what they take in along with the details of the purchases in an upload to a software called, LeadsOnline. Even if this is a requirement, Det. Lyon believes most would do it willingly, as stores have bought "hot" items to be able to notify him. "Many, many times I am making arrests just from the information I am getting from the pawn shops, people who have committed burglaries or thefts, or stealing out of cars, and it's just because of the relationships that we have," Det. Lyon said. He was also involved in the investigation of Amazon employees who allegedly took iPhone 15s from their workplace and sold them to an ecoATM. The investigation found that nearly 200 phones were stolen. Amazon employees accused of organized theft of iPhones worth over $150K total He also says they have also seen reports of theft of items out of cars. He said, "If it is valuable enough to report stolen to the police, it's valuable enough to take out of your car". Lyon advises documenting your property often, this includes serial numbers and IMEI on your devices. He also says to keep this information on a hard drive, in a safe place. This can be helpful for theft but also insurance claims, or natural disasters.