Theft
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Source: LAPD / LAPD
Sneaker heists and robberies have become more and more common over the last few years, but with authorities taking down these sneaker theft rings, thieves may want to rethink their strategies as police are becoming wiser to the game.
Source: LAPD / LAPD
Earlier this year, the LAPD busted up a sneaker theft operation that led to them recovering $5 million worth of stolen Nikes and Jordans at a stash house in LA. According to the Los Angeles Times, the people involved in the theft ring paid off people at UPS and even Nike to help them secure millions of dollars worth of stolen merchandise by having them print up fake shipping labels that would “deliberately misdirect or redirect” tons of sneakers across numerous spots in Los Angeles. And that was just the beginning.
Per the Los Angeles Times:
In the theft ring, detectives say, members would “intercept” packages with swapped labels, snatching them up somewhere along the supply chain of docks, highways and warehouses. Sometimes they would hijack packages by swapping addresses with the shipping companies after they had left Nike’s warehouse, according to Sternin’s affidavit.
Sternin said officials from Nike, which had been investigating the thefts internally, contacted the LAPD. Several emails seeking comment from Nike went unreturned.
A Memphis police sergeant working with that department’s cargo theft task force told Sternin that he had been working the case since last June, when he first became aware of “numerous unidentified co-conspirators” working at Nike’s Memphis location.
The ring has also recruited UPS employees in Tennessee and California “and possibly elsewhere within UPS and Nike supply chain network,” according to Sternin.
And we thought FedEx was doing us dirty by “losing” our sneaker shipments in the system. UPS and Nike were also out here in on a whole other kind of scheme SMH.
Ultimately, the investigation led back to one Roy Lee Harvey of Memphis. After obtaining a search warrant, authorities went through his email, iCloud data and cellphone records and found he had more than 1000 exchanges with Nike employees in Memphis, Tn., over a six-month period. Harvey was arrested Jan. 27.
While this may dissuade others from going down the same route that Harvey and his co-conspirators did, don’t think there aren’t others thinking of other ways to cash in on the sneaker market. It’s a billion dollar business with enough hypebeasts to fill a continent.
It’s only a matter of time before another sneaker bust leads to millions of dollars worth of stolen grails as this will only serve as a lesson of how to better prep for the next jux. Hopefully whatever grails you win don’t end up getting “misdirected” to another address.
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Rod Wave made a recent stop on his tour in Washington, D.C. and a tweet claiming that hundreds of vehicles were broken into went viral. It has since come out that there were way fewer than the reported break-ins that occurred during that night according to local police reports.
Rod Wave is currently on his 35-city Nostalgia tour and made a stop in Washington to perform at the Capital One Arena in the city’s Chinatown section this past Sunday (November 12. An X user by the name of @clothes_mindedx made an explosive claim that 232 cars were broken into in the area where the concert was being held and went viral in the process.
“[T]hey broke into 232 cars at the Rod Wave concert in DC last night… that’s nasty,” read the reply. Larger accounts like @SaycheeseDGTL picked up the tweet and shared it with their audiences, prompting a flurry of responses despite no official record coming from authorities in the region.
As seen on NewsOne, independent journalist Alan Henny took to X and shared his findings of the reported break-ins.
From Henny’s account:
Police officers are taking numerous reports of THEFTS FROM AUTOS in #DowntownDC in the past few hours.
This includes: 900 blk H St NW, 800 I St NW, 600 F St NW, 600 E St NW, 600 Mass Ave NW, 600 H St NW.
Guns were stolen from two autos.
NewsOne adds in its reporting that officials from the Metropolitan Police Department say that around 10 vehicles were broken into and no arrests have been made.
Washington has seen an uptick in break-ins and theft, along with a rise in armed and unarmed carjackings often attributed to area youth. The city is also on pace to set a record for homicides, prompting Mayor Muriel Bowser to enact emergency operations to address the crime across the city.
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Photo: Getty
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Source: Justin Sullivan / Getty
Over the last few years high-stakes sneaker heists have become routine as the sneaker business is just as profitable as anything else out here on these streets. The trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon as everyone out here is looking to make bank off the ever-growing sneaker culture.
CBS Chicago is reporting that police in the Windy City uncovered a den of stolen sneakers in a warehouse on the West Side of Chicago that housed millions of dollars worth of stolen Nikes, Jordans and Yeezy sneakers that were lifted off of freight trains carrying the valuable footwear. Apparently the hot merchandise was transported there from all corners of the United States to the Austin-based warehouse and flipped to retailers who had no idea that they were buying stolen sneakers.
CBS Chicago reports:
“Whether it be Nike products or UGG products or Adidas or Supreme, a lot of massive amounts of property, it’s probably close to $5 million in merchandise, minimum,” said Lyons Police Chief Tom Heroin.
The massive bust was the result of an investigation by the Lyons Police Department after a cargo theft was reported in the village about a week ago. That led investigators to the warehouse, where a search warrant was issued, and the mother load of theft rings was uncovered.
The site was already on the radar of multiple railroad companies and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office as rail cargo thefts have surged nationwide and become costly for companies.
“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,” Heroin said.
That sounds like quite the operation that required much man power and coordination. Though only two people have been arrested and charged in connection with the bust, a few others are under investigation. Who knows how many other dominos will fall as a result given the size and scope of this undertaking.
The Lyons Police Department is expected to hold a press conference later this week to explain its finding in the case and information on the individuals involved in the investigation, but what sneaker heads really want to know is which grails were found in this massive bust. Limited edition Jordans? Jarrito Dunks? Supreme Dunks? We. Must. Know!
What do y’all think of this latest massive sneaker bust? Inside job or very well coordinated crooks? Sound off in the comments section below.
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