Project Blitz Owner Sues Nike and LAPD Over 2024 Raid

Project Blitz founder Andre Ljustina is livid about the January 2024 LAPD raid of his company’s warehouse in a search for stolen Nike goods — a search that he says was unconstitutional and that ruined his business — and he’s taking both the sneaker titan and the cops to court over it.

Ljustina, the creator of the shoe and luxury goods reseller, filed suit against Nike, the L.A.P.D., the city of Los Angeles, and several Nike employees and police detectives in federal court in California on Monday (Jan. 26). At issue is the raid of his company’s warehouse, which took place almost exactly two years ago.

As part of an investigation into an alleged scheme to steal unreleased Nike shoes, the LAPD raided the warehouse in January 2024 because, police claimed at the time, a suspect in the case, Roy Lee Harvey, Jr., had been seen delivering packages to Project Blitz. In the aftermath of the raid, Harvey was arrested and charged with receiving stolen property. His case remains open.

Ljustina’s complaint claims that the police search — news of which he said destroyed his business and got him “blacklisted” — violated his constitutional rights. The cops’ warrant, the complaint says, “purported to authorize ‘any peace officer in the County of Los Angeles’ to search for and seize a wide variety of items having nothing to do with the Harvey scheme.”

The police, per the complaint, did just that by taking all of Project Blitz’s Nike and Converse stuff, including non-shoe objects like jackets — material worth millions of dollars in total.

Many of the shoes that were taken in the raid, the complaint continues, were years old and thus couldn’t have been part of a scheme involving unreleased shoes. Also taken in the raid were “large amounts of non-Nike merchandise,” which likewise, Ljustina continues, couldn’t have been part of any scheme involving not-yet-out Nikes. The material taken in the raid was illegally moved, per the complaint, out of California and to a Nike facility in Oregon, so that the company could determine which if any of the items was stolen.

A combination of lost inventory and social media and press accounts of the raid “immediately devastated” Project Blitz, Ljustina says. He eventually got his non-Nike goods back, but in “worse condition than when [they were] seized.” But the Nike goods, he says, got caught in a sort of loop, with Nike and the LAPD each claiming that it was the other’s responsibility to give them back.

Ljustina is suing Nike, the LAPD, the city, and the detectives and Nike employees for violating his Fourth Amendment rights. The warrant that authorized the search, he says, was “facially invalid.” He further claims his rights were violated because his property was kept long after the search was over. The complaint also accuses Nike and the aforementioned two employees, Assistant General Counsel Katherine Kaso-Howard and Director of Global Investigations Michael Ornelas, of civil theft.

Ljustina’s attorney J. Alejandro Barrientos, issued a statement to Complex.

“Andre has had a lifelong passion for sneakers, streetwear, and fashion that started at the age of 5 when his parents let him buy a Nike Air Jordan basketball jersey,” it reads. “He turned that passion into a successful business — a business that immensely benefited Nike by boosting enthusiasm for its products.

“Unfortunately, Nike and the LAPD wrongfully destroyed Andre’s livelihood by taking essentially the entirety of his Nike collection without legal justification. As alleged in the complaint, an LAPD detective admitted in early 2024 that Nike determined that Andre was likely the legitimate owner of shoes that were seized. Andre intends to get the justice he deserves.”

Complex also reached out to a representative from Nike, who noted that the company does not comment on pending litigation.