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Trafficking in counterfeit sports memorabilia. An investigation into one family’s experience reveals a much bigger problem in the sports memorabilia business.

The family of recently deceased firefighter Chuck Kerr suspected that a sports memorabilia collection he built over years was possibly bogus. NBC News investigated and discovered that many signed baseballs and other items in the collection, for which he spent well over $100,000, were fake, and all were sold to him by a dealer with a big name in the business, Ralph Perullo, who gained renown in 1999 when he purchased Joe DiMaggio’s personal sports memorabilia collection from his estate.