Police in Flushing are warning residents about a scam involving rented equipment being resold online before retailers can report it stolen.
According to the Flushing Police Department, a 16-year-old contacted officers on Feb. 18 seeking advice about a Kubota tractor listed on Facebook Marketplace for $9,000. Officers determined the tractor’s estimated value was approximately $26,000.
An officer assigned to the GAIN multijurisdictional auto theft task force instructed the teen to continue communicating with the seller and arrange a meeting in Flushing.
Around noon, officers set up surveillance at the agreed location and observed a black Chevrolet truck pulling a trailer carrying a tractor, loader, and backhoe. When the vehicle arrived at a business on Terrace Drive, police detained two men identified as Patrick Keilon-Jamel McGee and Morris Sparks.
Authorities said both suspects were wanted on unrelated offenses. Inside the truck, officers found a handwritten receipt indicating the tractor had been sold for $9,000. Investigators later determined the equipment had been rented from an Ohio location of Home Depot just two days earlier.
McGee and Sparks were arrested and charged with obtaining property under false pretenses over $20,000 and larceny by conversion over $20,000. Both were held on $60,000 cash bonds.
Documents recovered at the scene also linked one of the suspects to a similar case in Mecosta County on Feb. 17, where an elderly man reportedly paid $9,000 for another tractor in what investigators described as the same type of scheme.
Police said the recovered tractor was seized and returned to the retailer. However, the Mecosta County victim was unable to recover the money paid for the stolen equipment.
