Cops Arrest Alleged Thief After Finding $5 Million Worth of Nike Gear in a Warehouse

A California man has been arrested in connection to an organized retail theft ring after Los Angeles police made a shocking discovery when executing a search warrant. When police arrived at a warehouse in Hawthorne, they found boxes of Nike gear worth millions of dollars.

"Detectives [from the LAPD's Commercial Crimes Division’s Cargo Theft Unit, Major Theft Task Force, and Organized Retail Crimes Task Force], along with Nike’s Global Security Director and other supply chain investigators, conducted a search of the location and discovered thousands of pairs of stolen Nike shoes, clothing, accessories, and unique prototypes worth approximately $5,000,000," the LAPD said in a statement. Thirty-seven-year-old Roy Lee Harvey Jr. was arrested and is believed to be responsible for "receiving, redistributing, and reselling" the merchandise after being spotted taking the stolen Nike products into the warehouse.

Back in October, police in Lyons, IL outside Chicago similarly arrested two people after finding $5 million worth of Nike, Yeezy, Supreme, Uggs, and Adidas products in a warehouse. The majority of the stolen inventory in that case was from railroad cargo theft. "What they would do is they’d commit these cargo thefts, like from Memphis, Tennessee," local police chief Tom Heroin told WBBM about the crime. "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."

Harvey Jr. was booked for receiving stolen property, which carries a sentence of up to a year in jail and some big court fines if he's convicted of the crime as a misdemeanor. If convicted as a felony, the maximum sentence is three years in prison and a hefty fine.