Recently, a suburban California woman, Michelle Mack, has pleaded guilty to running a retail theft ring that stole $8 million in cosmetics from stores like Ulta and Sephora, and then sold the products on Amazon.
Mack, 53, is set to be sentenced on Thursday at the state courthouse in downtown San Diego, according to a news release from Queen of the Con’s Johnathan Walton. Her husband, Kenneth Mack, has also pleaded guilty to the same charges and will be sentenced alongside her.
Operating from their 4,500 sq ft home, which featured a vineyard and a chapel they rented out for weddings, Michelle Mack recruited a dozen women to steal high-demand makeup products in bulk from retail stores. She then sold these products on her Amazon store at roughly half their retail price, earning almost $2 million in 2022 alone and about $6 million over the preceding years, according to California state prosecutors.
Authorities discovered stockpiles of packaged makeup ready for shipping at Mack’s home after catching on to her scheme. Investigators, with the assistance of Ulta and Sephora, ultimately recovered about $400,000 in products from the homes involved in the case. Initially, the couple pleaded not guilty, but on 17 June, they reversed their decision and entered guilty pleas.
