Five individuals were arrested on Wednesday on charges after they stole and resold $20 million in appliances and construction materials from Home Depot stores in New York and elsewhere, federal prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said the quintet schemed for two years to open hundreds of lines of credit through Home Depot’s partner banks using shell companies and straw owners.
Paper checks presented to the stores were linked to accounts that had insufficient funds to cover purchases but before the checks were rejected, the defendants had already taken significant amounts of materials to their warehouses for resale, the indictment said…