Those Cherry Red Jordan 11s, Midnight Navy Air Jordan 4s, or the Black and Metallic Silver Air Jordan 6 are on your cop list for the next few months might have just gotten a little harder to get your hands on. Over Labor Day weekend, thieves broke into dozens of shipping containers at a Nike logistics warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee, and got away with an estimated $800,000 in Nikes, Jordans, and apparel.
Although we’re talking about a major burglary this time around, the lack of security from Nike and its supply chain has been an issue for years. From individual packages being stolen, all the way up to boxcars and truck trailers, it seems the “sweep it under the rug” approach to dealing with it isn’t cutting it.
As sneakerheads, most of us have seen this before, or even experienced some form of it firsthand. Last year, an employee was busted for stealing over $10,000 worth of products, this year in April, a group got caught stealing from one of the boxcars from a train that was delivering Nikes to the distribution center, and back in 2014, a man was charged for stealing over $1.2 million with of LeBrons.
For quite some time, we’d get excited to see a box taped up with that infamous black Nike packing tape. That tape is also what made Nike boxes a target for thieves looking to swipe our special deliveries. It became such a problem that a Change.org petition eventually got Nike and FedEx had to change up their strategy because so many packages were being stolen. Thankfully, Nike has mostly gone away from using branded tape on their packages, so aside from them being shaped like shoeboxes, they aren’t quite as easy targets for thieves.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, there doesn’t seem to be a real solution in sight for these ongoing problems. With the popularity of sneakers rising to new heights each and every year, the perceived value of shoes is well beyond their actual worth, which means whether it’s from your doorstep, from a train, or truck, thieves are still going to target hyped releases no matter what potential solutions Nike throws at it.
To pour salt on the wound, Air Jordan 11s, Air Jordan 6s, Air Jordan 4s, and more upcoming releases started popping up in mass quantities over the weekend on the Memphis OfferUp and Craigslist websites. So when you’re handed an L on the SNKRS app when these upcoming releases hit the SNKRS app, make sure you aim some of your frustration towards these burglars that are continuing to make it worse for all of us.
