The Los Angeles Police Department arrested a 37-year-old man who allegedly had $5 million in stolen Nike shoes inside warehouses.
On Saturday, detectives from the cargo theft and retail crimes unit executed two search warrants in Hollywood and Hawthorne, the agency said in a press release. The Hawthorne location was a warehouse where the suspect, Roy Lee Harvey Jr., was allegedly seen delivering stolen Nike products.
Detectives and Nike’s global security director recovered “thousands of pairs of stolen Nike shoes, clothing, accessories, and unique prototypes worth” about $5 million, officials said.
“It is believed Harvey Jr. is responsible for receiving, redistributing, and reselling a high dollar amount of stolen property,” the press release said.
Harvey is facing a charge of receiving stolen property and was booked into the Los Angeles County Jail where he is being held without bail. LAPD released photos of mountains of Nike shoe boxes at the warehouse. Among the items stolen, soleretriever.com reported, was the rare Nike Air Foamposite Paranorman that is priced at $7,500 on StockX.
A similar bust happened last October in the Chicago area when authorities collected $5 million in Nike, Uggs and Adidas products. Local CBS affiliate WBBM reported there was a “sophisticated operation” where the suspects swiped from rail cars, shipped them to a warehouse, and sold them to retailers. Cops arrested two people.
“What they would do is they’d commit these cargo thefts, like from Memphis, Tennessee. They’d re-label it, and they would ship it here. They would unpackage it, repackage it, and it’s a 100% markup, because they got it all for nothing,” Lyons Police Chief Tom Heroin told WBBM of the Chicago-area theft.
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