This is a misrepresentation.... They acquired the contract that held those sets, not the sets directly. The "ownership" of the sets was with the original owner. The set owner entered into an agreement with the shop to pay them for shelf space to advertise the sets for sale.
They were essentially "on-loan" or "borrowed". At no point in time was the ownership was ever transferred to the shop. Possession != ownership
Yes it's a misrepresentation and that's the whole point.
If B&M misrepresent things to the auditor it's unlikely they'll detect this. The auditor for B&M would not have access to the original contract between the previous owner of the store and the owner of the sets.
Audits just aren't that detailed. They might pick a few sample transactions or sample products to check in depth but every set in every store? Definitely not.
The comment I replied to insinuated an audit would lead straight to jail and I find that extremely unlikely. The likely outcome is a signed off audit, like at WireCard, ENRON, and WorldCom.