A three-month-long investigation into the large amount of shipments made to a Roxboro Road home led to charges against a Newark man, according to the Lawrence Township Police Department.
The 35-year-old man was charged March 4 with receiving stolen property and trafficking in stolen property in connection with the fraudulent purchases of 675 SpaceX terminals, police said. He was taken to the Mercer County Correction Center.
SpaceX terminals provide high-speed internet connections. The 675 terminals that were recovered were valued at about $400,000, police said.
Police were alerted to a large number of shipments being delivered to the Roxboro Road home in December 2023, and determined that the house was being used as a shipping and storage point for the SpaceX terminals.
The SpaceX terminals, which were purchased online using stolen credit cards, would be picked up later and taken to northern New Jersey, police said.
Detectives set up surveillance on the Roxboro Road home and saw them being loaded into a vehicle. When police stopped the vehicle, they recovered 223 SpaceX terminals that were confirmed to have been stolen.
SpaceX officials told police that they were happy that the stolen computer equipment had been recovered. It was the largest fraud recovery to date by an order of magnitude, the officials said.