FBI’s latest fraud investigation ‘Much bigger than Operation Bullpen’

Just a couple days after the New York Daily News broke the story about FBI investigators issuing multiple subpoenas to appear before a grand jury investigating fraud in the memorabilia business, a source close to the topic shed a little more light on the significance of this fast-moving industry story.

"It will be much bigger than Operation Bullpen," said an anonymous source. "This one's going to affect established hobby leaders and organizations. I think good always comes out of shake ups. I think it's going to put the hobby on a good long-term course and I think it will probably start creating the need for some true regulation.

"I think the hobby's been in need to look at the way they do business for a long time, especially when the numbers got bigger. With the increased success of our industry comes increased responsibility. We've (the hobby) reaped the rewards of increased success but we haven't become more responsible for how we've conducted ourselves as an industry."

According to the New York Daily News, agents spent several hours Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the National, sports memorabilia's largest annual convention.