{"id":720,"date":"2025-07-19T11:37:52","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T11:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/?p=720"},"modified":"2025-07-19T11:37:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T11:37:52","slug":"350-million-ripoff-with-fake-items-over-20-years-suicide-by-the-dealer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/350-million-ripoff-with-fake-items-over-20-years-suicide-by-the-dealer\/","title":{"rendered":"$350 MILLION RIPOFF WITH FAKE ITEMS OVER 20 YEARS, SUICIDE BY THE DEALER"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Infamous Sports Memorabilia Dealer Found Dead After Shocking $350 Million Counterfeit Confession<\/h1>\n<\/header>\n<\/article>\n

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Brett Lemieux, a seasoned sports memorabilia dealer, was found dead by authorities during the execution of a search warrant at his business,<\/strong> which was under investigation for alleged fraudulent activities, the New York Post<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

Lemieux, founder of the sports memorabilia website MisterManCave, claimed in a striking Facebook post on the \u201cAutographs 101\u201d group Wednesday morning that he had sold over four million counterfeit items, amassing more than $350 million in sales,<\/strong> authorities said. Shortly after Lemieux posted the 1,200-word message, which has since been removed, Westfield, Indiana, police reported that he died by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.<\/p>\n

Lemieux claimed in a Facebook post that he orchestrated a large-scale counterfeit scheme, forging holograms and authentication stickers for sports collectibles that imitated products from major companies like Fanatics and Panini.<\/p>\n

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Lemieux claimed he flooded the market with 80,000 pieces of counterfeit memorabilia following the death of Kobe Bryant in 2020.<\/p>\n

The sports memorabilia industry is reeling from Brett Lemieux\u2019s suicide and his confession of orchestrating a large-scale counterfeit scheme,<\/strong> though some industry insiders expressed little surprise at the revelations.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have known about this guy. They\u2019ve known his work. They know what he\u2019s been up to,\u201d<\/strong> said<\/a> Steve Grad, an industry expert. \u201cHe has been at it for years and years. And he\u2019s driven down the price of things. You know, you look at a Tom Brady autograph and Tom Brady\u2019s value is affected drastically by this individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others expressed concern that Lemieux\u2019s actions will cast a long shadow over the industry. \u201cHe did professional framing services for us probably four or five years ago \u2014 never had direct interaction with the memorabilia piece of it,\u201d said<\/a> Andy Albert, owner of Indy Card Exchange. \u201cThank God. Ninety-nine percent of the people in this industry do things the right way.<\/strong> And that one bad apple ruins the entire apple cart. It just infuriates me. Unfortunately, that\u2019s going to have shockwaves for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Infamous Sports Memorabilia Dealer Found Dead After Shocking $350 Million Counterfeit Confession Brett Lemieux, a seasoned sports memorabilia dealer, was found dead by authorities during the execution of a search warrant at his business, which was under investigation for alleged fraudulent activities, the New York Post reports. Lemieux, founder of the sports memorabilia website MisterManCave, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-frauds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":721,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions\/721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}