Electronics store owners accused of selling stolen items online

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Last summer federal agents and police raided eight electronics stores in the region but wouldn’t say why.

The reason became clear Thursday, when federal prosecutors accused the owners of one store of dealing in stolen merchandise and selling it online.

Aliya and Qamar Zaman, a married couple who own Ninja Electronics on Babcock Boulevard in Ross, were charged with mail fraud and illegally engaging in monetary transactions in connection with the fraud.

Details of the case are sparse and the Zamans haven’t yet retained a lawyer. They are not in custody. No one returned a message left at their business.

Prosecutors said they accepted stolen items, “new and in the box,” resold them on Amazon.com and shipped them to customers across the U.S. The second charge pertains to depositing money they made from the sales into their bank account.

The charges say the couple operated the scheme from August 2014 to June 2016, when the IRS, FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and local police conducted the raids.

At the time, the U.S. Attorney’s office confirmed only that raids occurred at Ninja Electronics locations Downtown and in Dormont, Edgewood and Ross as well as the company’s warehouse on the South Side. Also raided were Trader Electronics, Downtown, The Outlet in Dormont, Last Call Entertainment in Bellevue and 412Flip LLC, Downtown.

Prosecutors would not comment further Thursday.

The investigation is believed to involve a larger target with ties to all the stores and against whom prosecutors are building a case.

An employee of the Downtown Ninja store acknowledged that agents had raided the store in June but said he knew nothing about the investigation.