NEWSLETTER
If you mess with the GOAT, you get the horns.
According to the Associated Press, an 82-year-old Denver man was arrested this week for conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Mayo Gilbert McNeil had allegedly been selling counterfeit Michael Jordan cards since 2015, amassing over $800,000 on the fake deals.
Michael Driscoll, an assistant director-in-charge of the FBI’s New York field office, said to the AP in a statement that McNeil was fully aware of what he was doing and that he was “intentionally misrepresenting the authenticity of the trading cards.”
As we all know, Jordan memorabilia has gone for boatloads over the years, especially in the wake of The Last Dance docu-series that aired on ESPN in 2020. We’ve recently seen an MJ rookie card sell at auction for a record-breaking $1 million, while Jordan’s Game 1 jersey from the 1998 NBA Finals sold for a bonkers $10.1 million (which is now the highest price tag ever for a piece of sports memorabilia).
So, yeah, if you want to get rich quickly, finding a piece of Jordan history is a good way to do it. I’d just make sure that piece of history is legit if you don’t want to end up in the slammer!
