An Alpharetta man's Craiglist offer to sell a Rolex watch valued at $11,000 for only $80 was so outlandish, it attracted the attention of the Swiss company that makes the high-end timepieces, Channel 2 Action News reported.
The seller, 31-year-old Frederick J. McClimans Jr., now faces felony charges of trafficking in counterfeit merchandise out of his house on Kimball Crest Drive after he sold a fake Rolex to a private investigator working undercover for the watchmaker, police said.
McClimans was arrested Friday, charged and taken to Fulton County Jail. He posted $6,000 bond and was released Sunday, jail records show. No one answered the door to his house when Channel 2 knocked.
The investigation began when Rolex officials spotted the Craigslist ad for a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date Yachtmaster.
“They hired a private investigator to come do a controlled buy of a Rolex in our city,” Alpharetta police Officer George Gordon told Channel 2.
On the afternoon of Feb. 27, the seller met the private investigator in the parking lot of the Barnes and Noble bookstore on North Point Parkway in Alpharetta and made the sale, according to a police report.
A hidden digital audio recorder caught the man acknowledging the Rolex was fake and that he also had "knock off" purses for sale, if the buyer was interested, police said.
The investigator got the make, model and tag number of the seller's car -- a black 2008 Chrysler 300 -- and reported the information to police, who said they traced the car to McClimins. Police also took the bogus Rolex as evidence.
Officers executed a search warrant at the man’s house. Inside, police said, they found a trove of counterfeit goods that the suspect had been selling on Craigslist.
“We discovered counterfeit Gucci handbags, [and] counterfeit Rayban and Gucci sunglasses,” along with phony Rolex watches, Gordon said.
The investigation is continuing, and more charges are possible, police said.
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