Police arrived at the 2018 National Sports Collector Convention at the I-X Center in Cleveland yesterday to shut down a man they allege was selling thousands of dollars worth of counterfeit items.
The NSCC is a big deal, with hundreds of booths and dozens of famous former and current athletes and coaches are appearing at the 39th annual gathering, which runs through Sunday. Collectibles are a multi-billion dollar industry, one that has dealt with forgeries and counterfeits and scams since the beginning of time, with those scams themselves becoming a multi-million dollar industry. (Here’s a great true-crime yarn on an Ohio man and former indy baseball player who made more than $1 million in fraudulent memorabilia sales on eBay before the FBI snared him.)
Anyway, according to Fox 8’s Ed Gallek, the financial crimes division will now take over the case. We’ll update you when further information is available.
This article appears in Aug 1-7, 2018.
The lengthy Sports Illustrated story is worth a click and the time necessary for a good read. The amount of junk being sold as authentic remains a plague in the sports memorabilia marketplace — just look at the recent Eli Manning saga.