Group busted in multi-million dollar scheme at home improvement chains, prosecutors say

Five individuals were arrested on Wednesday on charges after they stole and resold $20 million in appliances and construction materials from Home Depot stores in New York and elsewhere, federal prosecutors said.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said the quintet schemed for two years to open hundreds of lines of credit through Home Depot's partner banks using shell companies and straw owners.

Paper checks presented to the stores were linked to accounts that had insufficient funds to cover purchases but before the checks were rejected, the defendants had already taken significant amounts of materials to their warehouses for resale, the indictment said.

Citizen App video showed a raid on Wednesday at a warehouse in Jamaica, Queens.

The indictment did not mention Home Depot by name but identified a home improvement retail chain headquartered in Atlanta.

The arrests are the latest in nationwide schemes targeting Home Depot at a time of rising costs for construction materials.

"For these defendants, the tools of their trade were not hammers and nails but fraud and deception," said U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella.

The alleged scheme also targeted Lowe's, in addition to Home Depot.

Lowe's is not mentioned by name either but the indictment instead identified a company headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina.

Between July 2023 and September 2025, the five defendants - Kai Xu, Zhi Bin An, Xiang Chen, Songhak Lee and Kang Zhang, fraudulently acquired at least $20 million in building and construction materials and appliances from Home Depot and Lowe's using more than 250 fraudulent accounts, the indictment said.

The five defendants are charged with conspiracy and fraud and were due in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday for arraignment. It was not immediately clear whether they had attorneys.