So as I stated earlier, I had just inquired about 044 parts from Bryce (cheapchainsawparts) the day before I heard about this story.
I do not know the guy personally, but I remember him from the early days when he was a small ebay store, and I actually opened up my 044 question to him with "Hey CheapStihlParts!" and that I remembered him from the old days.
He replied to me right away like he always does, stating he didn't have any 10mm cylinders and pistons.
So last night I sent him a reply (this is all through ebay) expressing my skepticism that he was in fact running a big chop shop and that I hoped this would all work out for him, and he responded right away .... so here is his side of the story, such as it is:
(emphasis mine)
Dear nyctreeman,
Thank you - yes its a real mess here they went through over 700 units and found 6 that were supposedly stolen.
A million lies about it all through the paper - ya I wish I made $166,000 last year, I actually made about $66k.
Worst part is, I was working out of my house in a shop and now the city shut me down here and had to let my 3 workers go now they're scrambling AND I have 5 days to come up with a plan to move 8,000 sqft 20 tons of stock into a new place or suffer the fines.
12 years in the same spot grew from a desk and and a small garage. We mostly deal with saw shops buy all their parts saws trade ins and such, but we do advertise buying saws. Got one in I bought on ebay few months ago - an 088 great price on a new listing buy now. Its one of the ones they took had half the serial # ground off. We did not do it and it isn't our fault. They came to the shop with 40 police units - yelling on bull-horns come out with your hands up - guns pointed at us. Put me my wife my office manager and his wife all in handcuffs and in cop cars. The news portrays it out of proportion to sell news papers not to tell the truth.
Thank you Bryce