In January 2024, the LAPD raided Project Blitz, a sneaker resale warehouse owned by Andre Ljustina, a famous collector known to the internet as Croatian Style.
It all stems from an allegation that Roy Lee Harvey Jr. sold stolen goods to Ljustina, so the LAPD seized everything in his warehouse. But Ljustina isn’t just a regular sneaker reseller, moving new Air Jordan retros and Dunks—he’s become known as a sneaker reseller to the stars. Drake, Jay-Z and Beyonce, Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner, Morgan Wallen, Scottie Pippen, and even Mark McGwire have all bought his rare shoes.
He’s a true collector too, amassing large quantities of grail level shoes like the Nike SB “Paris” Dunk, Wu-Tang Dunk, and Tiffany Dunk. He’s collected shoes like the “Space Jam” Jordan 11s that Michael Jordan wore in the film, Air Yeezy samples, and Air Jordans signed and worn by Kobe Bryant. Now, all of that is gone.
To counter all of this, Ljustina is suing the LAPD and Nike, claiming that they unlawfully raided his business and took millions of dollars worth of property that outright belonged to him and had nothing to do with the investigation on Harvey Jr. and his stolen goods.
To find out his side of the story, we spoke to Ljustina this week and got his take on it all.
The interview is below and condensed and edited for length and clarity.
You launched a lawsuit against LAPD and Nike, but just to bring it back, everything all starts at the beginning of 2024, right?
Well, first of all, Matt, I mean, how do you even prepare for something like that? There’s no way I would’ve known anything. I mean, I learned after the fact that, I guess Nike believed that this individual was selling stolen goods, and he sold me a very little amount of shoes. And again, I learned after the fact. I mean, I never knowingly purchased any goods. I was not arrested on the scene or charged with anything later, after the fact, either.
What was that like when the LAPD showed up to your warehouse?
I never knowingly purchased any stolen goods from this guy. I mean, everybody knew him around LA and all over the country. I can’t speak about all these details and whatnot, but I did not prepare for anything like this. I did not know anything like this was coming. I wasn’t arrested on the scene, nor was I charged with anything years later. Essentially, I was just left without anything here.
Why do you think the LAPD or Nike were targeting you?
To be honest, to be quite honest, I have no idea. I honestly really have no idea. I mean, as well as many people in the audience, I’ve done many events. I’ve done events recently with Ebay and Nike over the Nike SB anniversary and over the “What The Dunk” in Oregon and down here in Los Angeles. It literally was two nights of displaying part of our collection and inventory for these events. I’ve done All-Star Weekend events. I’ve displayed many different shoes from my collection over the years. I’ve done two years at ComplexCon, very legendary events.
All I’ve done is put energy into the shoes. I literally feel that I’m a huge catalyst to the Dunks coming back in 2018, but getting it to the various people, including one main rapper that has, without having to mention all these people by name, to be honest, that’s where Dunks started because no one really cared at that time prior to that.
We sold Parises to Mustard, to Travis Scott. These things were happening all before this big wave of the Dunks craze. At that time, all I’ve ever done is contribute to the industry. All I’ve done is contributed to the sneaker community.
Do you think that Nike was trying to come at you because they were trying to crack down on resellers and set an example?
Again, I really have no idea, and I’m really not even holding back on this because of a lawsuit or anything. I have no idea. This is obviously, I mean, for me to speculate on that, you just can’t even; I can’t speculate on it. It could be all these ridiculous reasons, but why target me? I have no idea. All I know is that everything that I ever worked for is gone, and this just makes zero sense.
I think I saw people talking online saying that if what you’re alleging is true between Nike and LAPD, that Nike was kind of in collusion with LAPD to come down on you for their business practices?
Well, all of these details are going to be in the lawsuit, and it’s really going to come out all of these when the lawsuit continues on. I mean, there’s a lot of damning things that have transpired here that should never, ever happen again, and it should have never happened on American soil. I mean, the entire thing is unconstitutional. [My 4th amendment rights] were broken. This can happen to anybody. And I’m not talking about just in sneakers. I’m talking about art collectors, watch collectors. You name it, it can happen to you. It could happen to your business. I mean, would this happen if this was a major corporation, do you think that they would raid your store and take everything in there? I mean, it’s unrealistic to believe that that would happen in any other situation.
I know you said they took everything, but what’s the most valuable thing that they took?
Well, without going into all these values and whatnot, but one of the items that I’ve had for so many years. I mean, look, they took things that were three years old, five years old, 10 years old, 15, 20, 30 years old. What do you have? 1995? Air max 95s. This is not part of anything. I’ve had game-worn Jordan 8s that Kobe Bryant played Michael Jordan in, signed both sides. I literally traded a Paris dunk to a friend of mine many years ago, over 20 years ago. Why was this taken? I have no idea. These are experts that are there. You know that you can figure out the dates on things. There’s no reason that any of this should have been taken. Things with my name on them, things with receipts in them, makes no sense.
So when the individual was arrested or came to your warehouse and got busted selling supposedly stolen goods, did the LAPD just come in and take everything out of your warehouse? Just like boom, it was all gone?
There’s a lot of things that are going to come out from that day that if the public really knew all this damning stuff, they basically—when there was these media reports that $5 million of stolen goods was recovered from me, that’s an absolute lie. That’s my property. All of those pictures and pics, the collection and everything that you guys have seen, the vault and all that stuff, all around that they were taking pictures of was my personal property and inventory that I lawfully bought. All of those pictures were of my personal property and inventory that I lawfully bought and literally just earned through years of hard work and collecting. There’s so many people out there that have done the exact same. They’ve collected, they’ve earned, they’ve bought from everywhere.
What do you think the outcome of the lawsuit’s going to be on your end?
Matt, We’re going to win. We have to win. Otherwise, there’s no justice in this country. We have to win. This is a must to win. This is [4th amendment rights] that are broken. The people need to understand that. Again, this can happen to anyone. If you get caught in a scenario, some narrative is created. This can never happen on American soil ever again. And if there’s new bills that need to be introduced to protect collectors, to protect store owners, this is what we need to do here. This is literally what we need to do here. This is about a movement to protect people from overreach by the government and police abuse, and abuse by any corporation or individuals within a corporation.
This was around the time where Nike was cracking down heavily on customizers and all of that. Do you feel like you kind of just got swept up in that and they just wanted to make you an example of it?
I mean, again, I can’t really state. I have no idea. You can assume a hundred different reasons why somebody would do this. I mean, truthfully, I don’t understand why you would go after certain artisans, customizers, collectors, even store owners for that matter. I mean, there’s certain people that are out there that are actually, it’s building the culture and it’s building energy around the brand. It’s building energy around the whole industry in itself. I mean, if you want to take a look at how the economy is in regards to sneakers and footwear, it’s not that great. And it’s not just because the economy’s sluggish. Apparently, there’s other businesses that are doing well. I think that this is a complete detachment from the consumer and community. And as far as Nike goes, they were always preaching about creating individualism, community, being there for the little guy and running, just being there in general and going against the grain.
And that’s literally what I’ve done. I trailblazed a new path for all of these stores over 25 years ago, and a lot of store owners. And it’s pretty sad at the way that everything has become lately with all the thievery, the people stealing, running to shops, stealing, stickups, and all this. I mean, that is the crime that needs to be cracked down—people going in and literally ramming cars through stores, break-ins, and just stealing. And then what happens? The report is filed and no resources are going out trying to find these individuals. So what happens? They keep doing it and doing and doing it, but it’s actually happened to us.
I guess that’s the last thing I want to ask you is that have you spoken to anyone at Nike and have they given you any sort of answers or clarity on any of this?
With our council, we had prior communication. We’re just getting the runaround from everyone, and that’s why this came to be where we’re at now. I mean, I’ve exhausted and tried everything. This whole thing has literally destroyed my life completely. I literally almost lost my home. I mean, look, ever in my life, did I ever think I would need to start a GoFundMe? And we actually started it. It’s on the bio of the Project Blitz Instagram, and my own as well. We haven’t been able to put that out there yet, but here it is. It’s literally to help with legal costs and trying to maintain while we go through all of this.
So basically, when you’re asking me how I felt during that day, I mean, never did I imagine that a corporation would be allowed to come into my building and literally just take anything that they wanted and load up trucks and take that over state lines to Oregon. Is that a shock? Where do you think that things should be held? I mean, a lot of things were broken here, and I think people really need to know that.
Read the full article here
