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This story was updated on Aug. 28 at 11:15 a.m.

Prince George's County police officers raided and closed a Bladensburg pawnshop Thursday afternoon as part of a departmental crackdown on pawnshops that buy and sell new and unopened merchandise that police officials say they believe is stolen.

After officers served a search warrant, representatives from retailers Home Depot, Safeway and Target began removing boxes of merchandise from the Parkway Pawn Shop in the 5600 block of Annapolis Road.

The boxes, which the retailers loaded onto trucks, contained such items as power tools, small kitchen appliances, over-the-counter medication, toys and computer equipment, said Maj. Robert Liberati, head of the county police department's pawnshop task force.

Earlier this summer, county Police Chief Roberto L. Hylton created the task force to address a rising trend in items being stolen from area stores and homes and then sold in pawnshops.

The search warrant was served after officers discovered, during routine inspections of the pawnshop, items that local retailers had reported as stolen, Liberati said, adding the retailers will assist police in determining whether the items were stolen from their stores.

The shop owner, whom police did not identify by name, has not been charged and is cooperating with police, Liberati said.

The pawn shop was closed hours later by the county fire department after officials found numerous code violations, Liberati said.

Most of the stolen items in pawnshops likely are stolen from major retailers either off the store floor or by employees in stock rooms, he said.

"We're not talking about used property," he added. "We're talking about high-volume, brand-name, in-the-box merchandise."

The pawnshop has been selling boxes of unopened merchandise online through an associated eBay store, Liberati said.

A man Liberati identified as the store's owner was in the shop's parking lot watching boxes being loaded into trucks. The man declined to comment.

The task force conducted its first raid of a pawnshop in July when it seized items such as televisions and software from the Maryland Computer Exchange in the 5600 block of Landover Road in Cheverly.

E-mail Elahe Izadi at eizadi@gazette.net.