In the heart of Memphis, where BBQ and blues reign supreme, one FedEx employee decided to take on a different kind of rhythm: the jingle-jangle of greed. Antwone Tate, a worker at FedEx’s Memphis Hub, was less interested in logistics and more involved in liberating packages from their rightful owners. The alleged treasure trove theft included among its spoils an $8,500 diamond ring, a nest of nearly $14,000 in pure gold bars, and enough vintage baseball cards to make any collector salivate.
As it usually happens with audacious capers, Tate’s began unraveling when FedEx’s Loss Prevention team noticed packages vanishing from thin air faster than you could say “express delivery.” The date was May 27, and the team flagged this anomaly, embarking on an investigation that quickly turned up a sparkle-strewn path. This luxurious breadcrumb trail ended at a pawn shop, where the absent diamond and gold bars were almost brazenly exchanged using Tate’s very own driver’s license—an act of misjudgment akin to signing your confession with a flourish.
While the pawn shop scene unfolded like a predictable yet captivating heist movie, the plot thickened with a third package fraught with even more nostalgic excess. A time capsule to the golden age of baseball, this package housed cardboard relics: a 1915 Cracker Jack Chief Bender and a 1933 Goudey Sport Kings Ty Cobb. Valued collectively at about $6,800, these cards are less about paper and ink and more about an era epitomized by golden gloves and otherworldly athleticism.
But far from ending in a high-speed chase with a crash and a confession, this story takes a far more modern turn. These baseball treasures appeared on eBay under the username antta_57. With this level of creativity, you’d think the digital era’s anonymity was an assured getaway. Instead, this amateur attempt at elusiveness traced a direct line back to Tate, a fact as subtle as a flashing neon sign reading “Catch me if you can.”
Now dressed in charges of theft of property, Tate’s magical tour of misplaced morality finds him surprisingly unemployed, courtesy of FedEx. In a move that barely had the chance to clasp any handshakes, the company announced his removal, firmly establishing that contrary to a few misconstrued beliefs, taking possession of customer property isn’t the kind of employee initiative they endorse.
Their official statement might be the driest of the bunch, emphasizing that theft isn’t featured in their employment manuals. The underlying sentiment, though, was sharper: “boy, bye.” It’s as though the corporate behemoth dispatched Tate like a parcel into another oblivion, a world devoid of easy pickings.
For Antwone Tate, the allure of piracy on domestic postage turned out to be a short voyage into uncharted waters of legal infractions. His aspirations for making a fortune or at least a comfortable sideline income through pilfered post ended in a vivid confrontation with the very same organization in charge of dispatching lives onto better pathways—albeit not with as much literal hijacking.
With Antwone Tate’s little adventure wrapping up like the perfunctory end of a package holiday—a return to reality where consequence outstrips bravado—it seems, every pilfered icon has led to a bit of poetic justice. Next time you click “track parcel,” and realize your package is lost in the nexus of deliverance, consider glancing at eBay. Maybe, among the cryptically named accounts selling jewels, bullion, or even a dusty Ty Cobb, lies the amusing, hapless shade of antta_58. Not to suggest such a hijink is afoot again, but let’s just say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it might splash its way onto a regretful Internet resale.