If the police can't help you this is the best you can do. I know lots of stories of people getting back their $1000+ gear only when they offer cash for the person to drop it and walk away or to anonymously return it.
$100 to guarantee your device back is a small price to pay apart from the insult of paying the thief.
A former boss had the idea of fence.io - a digital stolen goods fence service allowing thieves to anonymously sell back goods to their original owners.
A couple apartments ago I had to park on the street and without fail if I ever forgot to lock my car I would wake up the next morning and discover it had been rifled through with 50/50 chance my car charger and cables would be missing.
Day dreamed about a system where instead of spending 30 bucks to replace my fancy QC later PD car charger I could pay a bribe of 10 bucks to the homeless person to whom a car charger was completely useless anyway with essentially no resale value.
I forgot my iPhone in a taxi in China; managed to call it and talk to the driver who had found it. Had to pay him off to get it back though :/ But it was cheaper than buying a new phone.
