The Sneaker So Hot It Blew Up Alleged $85 Million Ponzi Scheme

A private jet landed in May 2022 at a small airport near Eugene, Oregon, and dropped off two men. They hopped in a car and drove past vegetable farms and cannabis storerooms to a quiet business park at the western edge of town. Their destination was a dusty warehouse that held hundreds of rows of neatly stacked sneaker boxes, almost 60,000 in all. The shoes were the stockpile of Michael Malekzadeh, the owner of Zadeh Kicks, one of the largest US sneaker resale operations. Many of the sneakers were among the most valuable on the secondary market, selling for thousands ...