MIAMI \u2013 A former Miami Heat team employee has been accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of Heat memorabilia and selling it online.<\/p>\n
Marco Thomas Perez, 62, of Miami, is charged with one count of transporting and transferring stolen goods in interstate commerce, according to a news release<\/a> from the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/p>\n Perez, a 25-year retired veteran of the City of Miami Police Department, worked as a game-day security officer for the Heat at its home Kaseya Center from 2016-21. He also worked as an NBA security employee from 2022-25. <\/p>\n While employed with the Heat, Perez accessed a secured equipment room multiple times and stole more than 400 game-worn jerseys and other items, which he sold to numerous online brokers. He sold more than 100 stolen items \u2013 often below market value \u2013 for about $2 million over a three-year period, according to DOJ. In one example, Perez sold a game-worn LeBron James Miami Heat NBA Finals jersey for about $100,000. That same jersey later sold at an auction by Sotheby\u2019s<\/a>, one of the world\u2019s largest online auctioneers, for $3.7 million.<\/p>\n Law enforcement executed a search warrant on Perez\u2019s residence on April 3 and seized nearly 300 stolen game-worn jerseys and team memorabilia, according to the release. The Heat confirmed those items were stolen from their facility and were intended to display in a future Miami Heat museum.<\/p>\n The case is being investigated by FBI Miami.<\/p>\n \u201cThe NBA has never been more popular, and authentic player jerseys would have be considered among the most desirable gear for basketball fans and collectors around the world,\u201d said David Campbell, sports manager for cleveland.com \/ The Plain Dealer.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2013 A former Miami Heat team employee has been accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[1029,8532,355,198,46932,99],"class_list":["post-63317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-art","tag-auction","tag-nba","tag-sothebys","tag-sport-auction-horizontal","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}