MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Federal authorities have indicted 12 people in an alleged cargo theft conspiracy that targeted Nike’s logistics center in Memphis, and one of the defendants is from Olive Branch.
Michael Perkins, 40, of Olive Branch, Mississippi, was among the 12 named in a federal grand jury indictment returned May 21, charging all of them with conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. The case is before U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Parker in the Western District of Tennessee.
How the $2 million scheme worked
Prosecutors say the group stole at least $2 million in Nike merchandise between July 2021 and June 2024. According to court records, Nike employees involved in the scheme identified high-value shoe cartons inside the warehouse and attached unauthorized UPS shipping labels that redirected the shipments to addresses across the country instead of their intended destinations. Roughly 3,119 UPS labels were successfully used during the operation, with destinations including California, Wisconsin and Indiana.
The investigation was led by the FBI’s Cargo Theft Task Force with assistance from FBI field offices in Chicago and Los Angeles. One of the highest-profile defendants is Bereket Abraham, 39, of Los Angeles — co-founder of the popular sneaker retailer CoolKicks — who prosecutors allege helped create fraudulent UPS shipping labels to move the stolen merchandise…