Prosecutors charged Kevin Kelly, 33, of North Carolina, and Mark Rothfuss, 47, of Brockton, Mass., as well as a company known as , of Hanover, Mass., with wire fraud and selling, receiving or transporting stolen property in interstate commerce. Kelly was also charged with aggravated identity theft.

BL Trading is a 23-year-old computer equipment reseller that, among other vendors, distributes EMC hardware and software products. Its that it has "the largest inventory of pre-owned [EMC] Clariion parts in the Northeast." Clariion is EMC's midrange line of data storage systems. The company also resells products for , Hewlett-Packard, , Brocade Communications Systems, QLogic and Emulex.

An EMC spokesman said the company cooperated closely with local and federal authorities in their investigation of the alleged thefts.

"This type of alleged illegal behavior robs legitimate businesses of millions of dollars in lost revenue," said Bruce Foucart, special agent in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Homeland Investigations (HSI) in Boston, in a statement. "HSI will continue to investigate these crimes in an effort to deter this activity in the United States and around the world."

The charges also allege that BL Trading used software obtained from EMC to update EMC computer equipment that it was supposed to use only for its EMC-authorized business, but instead used it to update EMC computer equipment for its separate resale business.