Why cant i sell stollen goods to thieves

Originally posted by Charlie: I've got to agree with Gd_00 on this score. Realistically if you've stolen the goods then no-one could know that they are stolen, particularly if you were to steal from say Trademeet and then attempt to sell in the Docks. I think the main reason for it is to prevent high level thieves creaming a store and selling everything back to become mega rich.

Damn! How did they know what I did in all the Ultima games? (And, yes, I tried it in BG as well)