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A sports memorabilia dealer died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound shortly after police carried out a search warrant to search his alleged fraudulent operation, and hours after he admitted to the business being bogus.
Brett Lemieux of Westfield, Indiana, founded MisterManCave, which allegedly sold apparent counterfeit items. In a Facebook post, Lemieux allegedly admitted to selling 4 million counterfeit items.
“Mistermancave has sold over 4 million items…Surpassed 350 million in sales,” Lemieux allegedly wrote in the since-deleted post in a Facebook group titled “Autographs 101.”
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The post, according to the New York Post, said that he considered stopping the operation, but the money was “too good” to do so.
Lemieux allegedly admitted to creating millions of fake holograms and stickers. He had apparently been on the radar of many legitimate companies.
“We have an entire team that includes former FBI agents that are out there going after bad actors like this one,” Fanatics president of specialty business and new ventures Zohar Ravid said, via The Athletic.
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“We’re constantly monitoring what is happening in the ecosystem, especially in the marketplaces. And so we were able to follow this guy. We knew about him as long as seven or eight years ago at this point. … Our No. 1 concern is protecting the market, protecting the fan and ensuring that good actors like ourselves and other players aren’t being hurt because of a few bad apples in the ecosystem.”
“We are aware of an ongoing investigation regarding a sports memorabilia and autograph dealer based in Westfield, Indiana,” eBay, where Lemieux would sell his items, said in a statement. “eBay has zero tolerance for criminal activity on our platform and will cooperate fully with law enforcement as they investigate.”
Police said they began the search on Tuesday in one property before finding Lemieux’s body in another property on Wednesday. Autographs of Derek Jeter, Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, Aaron Judge, Patrick Mahomes and many others were on sale.
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