At 9am last Tuesday, the City of Westfield police in Indiana pulled up to a warehouse on South Park Drive, armed with a search warrant and a fleet of semi trucks that indicated they knew exactly what they were looking for. As part of a continuing investigation into fraud and counterfeiting, they confiscated thousands of items of sports memorabilia.
The following day, the same crew fetched up at a property on Hoover Street bent on adding to their pile of evidence. Upon entering those premises, however, they also discovered the body of Brett Lemieux, owner of both businesses, with a shotgun by his side.
In the hours in between the first raid and the second, Lemieux apparently realised the jig was up, logged on to a private Facebook group and wrote a lengthy posting lifting the lid off an especially seedy corner of US sporting culture. The proprietor of Mister Mancave, an outfit that has supposedly generated $350 million (€299 million) selling autographed balls, bats and jerseys to fans across the country over the past two decades, admitted the majority of the merchandise he flogged was fake. The 45-year-old also named co-conspirators in the elaborate boondoggle, explained in some detail how they had scammed so many people, and then took his own life.
“I hope no one tries to hide this,” wrote Lemieux. “I want to expose it all and how big of an operation – you all knew it was going on but grasp how big it was ... It was a thrill having every athlete in every sport from every authentication company at your fingertips to produce the signature flawless ...
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“I was addicted. It was a rush. I wanted out. But the money was too good. I can make $100,000 in a week if I wanted to. The fact that not one dealer that knew what we were doing to the industry, or when I took their exclusive, no one ever picked up a phone to confront me. That baffled me.”
According to some business experts, the sports memorabilia market in the US is worth a staggering $30 billion a year and growing fast. Much more so than in Ireland or the UK, the appetite for paraphernalia touched or signed by famous athletes in the US seems to be insatiable. The bigger the name involved or the more significant the moment the item relates to, the more ridiculous the sums are.
The ball that Shohei Ohtani hit for his 50th home run last season sold for $4.3 million. From rare trading cards to game-worn gear, just about anything with a player’s signature on it is eminently collectible and deemed to be worth money. Many make these purchases as investments, believing they will most likely increase in value as years go by.
Lemieux’s revelations and the awful circumstances of his demise have thrown a cloud over an already shady business that has traditionally attracted plenty of flim-flam artists on the make. One expert reckons the authenticity of just about every signed bauble bought and sold over the past 20 years must now be called into question.
While some of his rivals seriously question the veracity of the numbers being bandied about in his name, if Mister Mancave did indeed, as he claimed, launch 80,000 fraudulent items into the market following the tragic death of Kobe Bryant, the true origin of every ball or jersey related to the former NBA star is in serious doubt.
Established companies such as Fanatics, Panini, Tristar, James Spence Authentication, Mill Creek Sports, GT Sports Marketing and CardVault (50 per cent of which is owned by Tom Brady) are legit operators in the memorabilia space. These corporations fork out vast sums for the right to collaborate with individual athletes, teams and leagues, selling licensed merchandise bearing official signatures and imprimaturs. In a world where just about anybody can fake somebody else’s handwriting, though, they also spend small fortunes combating armies of swindlers, trying to preserve the integrity of their business.
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Issuing certificates of authenticity (COA) with every purchase, they place identification holograms in products to prove their bona fides, and their security teams, often staffed by former FBI agents, trawl online marketplaces trying to catch grifters. It is believed Fanatics and other outfits assisted the authorities investigating Lemieux and his complex operation that was, for a long time, very effective. Partly this was due to him changing the business name any time suspicion grew up around his sales.
Lemieux and his accomplices appear to have figured out ways to circumvent the elaborate precautions taken by the big companies. Using autopens purchased for $150 from Amazon to copy autographs, they also discovered an outlet in China that replicated the distinctive holograms deployed by their corporate rivals.
Then they put their high-class fakes for sale online for half what they might cost from a more reputable source. When a signed Brady or Patrick Mahomes shirt was picked up cheap and subsequently gifted to somebody for Christmas, the recipient hung it in their home or office, none the wiser to any skulduggery afoot.
Even after all the brouhaha surrounding Lemieux’s scorched-earth posting and the talk of an authentication crisis in the industry, the market for gear seems unaffected. On eBay the other night, jerseys signed by Brady were going for anything from $599 to $10,000; some of them came with COAs, others boasted holograms. Genuine articles? Made with a nefarious assist from China? Who knows? In this business, you pays your money, you takes your chance. Always.
