Joshua Shores's $2.5 million counterfeit jersey and forged autograph operation
Joshua Shores, a Maryland businessman who ran several internet sports memorabilia businesses in Pennsylvania and Maryland, bought counterfeit sports jerseys in bulk, added fraudulent autographs, and resold them as authentic through more than 80 bank accounts and multiple PayPal and Amazon seller accounts between 2008 and 2013. He pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and was sentenced in April 2017 in federal court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania to five years in prison, $500,000 in restitution, a $5,000 fine, and forfeiture of $140,000 in assets.
- Year
- 2017
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Sentenced
- Reported loss
- $2.5 million
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Sports memorabilia fraud
- Last reviewed
- 2026-11-01
The facts, as recorded
- The scheme ran from 2008 to 2013 and totaled about $2.5 million.
- Shores used multiple PayPal and Amazon accounts to buy counterfeit sports jerseys, added fake autographs, and resold the jerseys as authentic.
- He opened more than 80 bank accounts during the five-year scheme.
- He was sentenced to five years in prison, two years of supervised release after serving the sentence, $500,000 in restitution, a $5,000 fine, and forfeiture of $140,000 in assets.
- The US Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced the sentence; the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations were the investigating agencies.
- Assistant US Attorney Michelle Olshefski prosecuted the case.
Why this case matters
Unlike a single high-value forged signature, this is the bulk, industrial version of the scheme: genuinely counterfeit jerseys, not just forged signatures on genuine equipment, bought wholesale and run through dozens of financial accounts to keep the operation from being shut down by any one payment processor or bank.
The scale of the account structuring
More than 80 bank accounts over five years, alongside multiple PayPal and Amazon seller accounts, is a level of structuring well beyond what an ordinary small business needs. Spreading transaction volume this widely makes it harder for any single institution to flag the pattern, and it limits the damage when one account or marketplace listing is eventually shut down.
The caveat
Shores pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, and the sentence, restitution, fine, and forfeiture described above were imposed by the court following that plea; they are not allegations. The number of individual victims was not stated in the source consulted for this case and is recorded here as unknown.
Sources
- OC businessman sentenced five years for $2.5M fraud scheme. WMDT. Accessed 2026-11-01. Supports: The sentence, restitution, fine and forfeiture amounts, the 2008 to 2013 scheme period, the counterfeit-jersey-plus-forged-autograph method, the more than 80 bank accounts, and the prosecuting agencies and attorney.