A Facebook post just exposed over 4 million fake sports memorabilia items and $350M in sales over 20 years—affecting Fanatics, Panini, Tristar, and more. It ended in a police raid and an early grave.
The hobby isn’t just cooked… it’s charred.
This week, a jaw-dropping Facebook post blew the lid off what may be the largest counterfeit memorabilia ring since Operation Bullpen. A user named Brett Lemieux casually confessed to helping pump over 4 million fake items into the hobby — raking in $350+ million in sales across two decades.
This wasn’t a basement print job gone rogue. This was an organized, mass-scale forgery operation that duped collectors, shops, and even authentication companies.
Let’s run the hobby horror show recap:
100,000+ forged Tom Brady items
80,000 fake Kobe Bryant items dumped into the market posthumously
Millions of fake Fanatics, Panini, Tristar, JSA, and Steiner holograms
Auto-pen signatures so clean they passed player signings
And a final act that ended in a police raid and someone taking their life.
🕵 How Did This Happen?
According to Brett’s now-infamous post, it started with one guy: Dominique from Carmel, Indiana. He funneled fakes through dozens of burner accounts under aliases like Steve Jordan and “dilliano,” mass-producing fake COAs and holograms using auto-pen machines and overseas signature vectoring.
His quote?
“I had every hologram from every company’s database. I typed ‘Mahomes,’ and out came 10,000 certified stickers.”
This man literally created a custom counterfeiting UI. It was ChatGPT for faking slabs.
🚨 What’s Even Real Anymore?
The post claimed:
97% of Tom Brady Tristar autos are fake
95% of Mahomes and Aaron Judge autos currently on the market were faked by them
“Every company I touched is now my b*tch” 😬
He bragged about mixing real and fake inventory, faking entire signing events, and even fooling the athletes themselves. Bro was deep in the multiverse of mid.
🔥 So... What Now, Collector Fam?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
If you bought a signed memorabilia item in the last 20 years, especially Brady or Kobe? It might be fugazi.
And if you’ve ever said, “Well at least it has a hologram,” congrats—you just bought a shiny sticker from Brett’s label printer.
Do this now:
Reevaluate any autos without full provenance
Don’t trust COAs alone—especially old Tristar or Fanatics stock
Ask questions. Document everything.
And if your Kobe auto came out of nowhere in 2020... you might want to sit down
🧯 Final Thoughts from the Breakroom
This isn't just a scandal. It’s a collector’s identity crisis.
The guy behind this post didn’t just steal money—he stole trust, the single most valuable currency in the hobby. And he did it while sitting on an auto-pen for 8 hours a day like it was a Topps factory internship.
If this story teaches us anything, it's this:
The next time someone tries to sell you a $2,000 signed mini helmet “with COA”… maybe sip first, then rip.
And maybe—just maybe—don’t buy it from an account named “DillianoSports123.”
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