CMPD officers recently arrested a man for “running a multi-million-dollar E-bay storefront out of Charlotte a storage unit.”
Last month Charlotte resident Edwin Barkley pled guilty to “Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property”. According to police, evidence showed that Barkley would buy stolen tools from his black market connections around Charlotte, store them in his storage unit, then list and sell them on his eBay storefront, “Tool King USA”.
Police sent out the following tweets yesterday after Barkley submitted his guilty plea;
The investigation revealed that Barkley had been running a multi-million-dollar E-bay store front out of Charlotte a storage unit. Co-conspirators would steal tools from @Lowes, @HomeDepot, and @Target and sell them to Barkley, who would then resell them on E-bay. pic.twitter.com/o2yGBfn1v6
— CMPD News (@CMPD) April 3, 2019
Last month, Edwin Barkley pleaded guilty to Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property in connection with an investigation by CMPD and the U.S. Secret Service-Organized Crime Task Force. pic.twitter.com/fwoOOFxjBz
— CMPD News (@CMPD) April 3, 2019
According to police, Barkley sold more than 19,000 items, generating $3 million+ in stolen equipment between August 2015 and October 2018 out of his storage unit at Penny Pinchers Storage on North Tryon St.
When police executed their search warrant on the storage unit in 2018, they discovered about 6,400 new items on 83 pallets that had an estimated value of over $1 million.
According to Home Depot, this was the largest seizure of stolen merchandise in the company’s history.