A.(1) Every individual, firm, corporation, entity, or partnership, except municipalities, political subdivisions, and public utility companies, engaged in the business of purchasing and reselling any of the materials provided for in this Part located either at a permanently established place of business or in connection with a business of an itinerant nature, including junk shops, junk yards, junk stores, auto wreckers, scrap metal dealers or processors, salvage yards, collectors of or dealers in junk or secondhand property, and junk trucks, shall either keep a register and file reports or electronically maintain data and be capable of readily providing reports, as specified in Subsection B of this Section, in the form prescribed by the Department of Public Safety and Corrections which shall contain the following information:

            (a) The name and address of the residence or place of business of the person required to either keep the register and file reports or electronically maintain the data and generate the requested reports.

            (b) The date and place of each such purchase.

            (c) The name and address of the person or persons from whom the material was purchased, including the distinctive number of the person’s or persons’ Louisiana driver’s license, driver’s license from another state, passport, military identification, or identification issued by a governmental agency or the United States Postal Service. If the person cannot produce any of the above forms of identification at the time of purchase, the purchaser shall not complete the transaction.

            (d) Repealed by Acts 2012, No. 292, §2.

            (e) A full description of all such material purchased, including the weight of the material and whether it consists of bars, kegs, cable, ingots, rods, tubing wire, wire scraps, clamps, connectors, or other appurtenances or some combination thereof.

            (f) A full description of railroad track materials purchased, including the weight and whether it consists of rail, switch components, spikes, angle bars, tie plates, or bolts of the type used to construct railroads or other appurtenances or some combination thereof.

            (2) This Section shall not apply to purchases of materials from any manufacturing, industrial, or other commercial vendor that generates, as a byproduct or recyclable waste, or sells such materials in the ordinary course of its business.

            (3) In addition to the other requirements of this Subsection, any person, firm, corporation, or entity engaged in the business of buying or selling unattached catalytic converters or engine control modules as a single item and not as part of a scrapped motor vehicle shall register with the chief of police and sheriff of each city and parish in which the business is conducted.

            B. Each such person shall keep either one copy of such completed form in a separate register or book or maintain the information in electronic format as provided in Subsection A of this Section which shall be kept for a period of three years at his place of business and shall be made available for inspection by any peace officer or law enforcement official at any time during the three-year period.

            C. Failure to maintain the information or the register or to produce a report requested by any peace officer or law enforcement official as required by this Section shall be prima facie evidence that the person receiving such material described in this Section and not registered or reported, received it knowing it to be stolen, in violation of La. Rev. Stat. 14:69.

            D. Whoever violates this Section shall be fined not less than one thousand dollars or imprisoned for not less than thirty days nor more than six months, or both.

            Amended by Acts 1977, No. 553, §1; Acts 2003, No. 1184, §1, eff. July 3, 2003; Acts 2011, No. 389, §1; Acts 2012, No. 292, §2; Acts 2022, No. 127, §2.