A federal grand jury has officially indicted the owner of the iconic Los Angeles shoe destination, Coolkicks, following a massive, cross-country investigation into a high-stakes Nike heist.
After a years-long joint operation, the LAPD and the FBI swooped in to arrest Coolkicks co-owner Bereket Abraham, 39, along with 11 other suspects. The group is accused of using the famous Melrose hotspot as a front to swipe more than $2 million worth of Nike sneakers straight from the brand’s Memphis warehouse between 2021 and 2024.
According to investigators, the scheme was surprisingly tech-savvy. They allege that Abraham and another suspect, Roy Lee Harvey Jr., used the shop’s very own UPS equipment to generate fake shipping labels. They’d then send those labels to accomplices working inside the warehouse, who would slap them on high-value shipments, effectively rerouting the cargo directly to Coolkicks and other co-conspirators.
The whole house of cards finally came crashing down during a 2024 snowstorm that brought operations at the Memphis warehouse to a standstill. During the pause, a sharp-eyed Nike employee noticed something fishy: the fake UPS labels were being attached to cargo that wasn’t even meant for UPS. Since the supervisors had worked with the LAPD on past cases, they reached out to a detective they knew, pointing out that both the shipping and mailing addresses were located in L.A.
From there, it was game over. Investigators and Nike team members placed tracking devices in the shipments, which led them straight back to Coolkicks and several other locations.
Once the shoes were stolen, they were allegedly either sold right at the Coolkicks store or flipped online through resellers like Jorge Cuellar—better known to his social media followers as “horehead_sales.” Authorities claim Abraham and Cuellar paid Harvey and his crew a staggering $900,000 for the stolen merchandise.
If convicted, the defendants—including Abraham, Cuellar, Harvey, and nine others—are facing some serious jail time: a maximum of 15 years in federal prison, along with $500,000 in fines and up to three years of probation.
The list of those indicted includes Keith Cannon, Cadarian Mack, Julian Baker, Cortez Spencer, Roderico McClellan, Damon Johnson, Joel Deluna, Michael Perkins, and Marquesio Robinson.
This is just the latest blow for the brand; the other owner of Coolkicks, Adeel Shams, was already arrested back in October 2025 for allegedly purchasing $500,000 worth of stolen Nike shoes and apparel. Talk about a major fashion foul!