Upper West Sider Accused of Consumer Fraud, Art Seized

On Tuesday night, a reader emailed us about the FBI swarming out of a building on West 75th Street near Riverside, with many agents taking out works of art. It turns out the works were taken from the "alleged ringleader of a multistate con game"! The NY Post explains that Dina Wein and others would buy products from "Balance Bar, Bausch & Lomb, Campbell's, Bic, Eastman Kodak, Gillette, Kraft, Nestlé, Sara Lee and Unilever" at very low cost, claiming they would be given away at schools, nursing homes or in other promotions. The Department of Justice explains, "Manufacturers often do so to aid humanitarian organizations, to engender goodwill for their product and to increase sales for their product by promoting it to a new sector of the market." In reality, the feds claim the crew sold products--like $2.2 million of Wisk and All detergents, bought for $500,000--to retailers like Walgreen and made a huge profit. Besides 60-some works of art, the DOJ mentions 150 bank accounts for seizure.