Eddie Antar, the Brooklyn-born man who created the chain of Crazy Eddie electronics stores only to watch it collapse when an underlying fraud was exposed, died on Saturday. He was 68.

His death was confirmed by the Bloomfield-Cooper Jewish Chapels in Ocean Township, N.J., which did not say where he died or give the cause.

Mr. Antar, who was born on Dec. 18, 1947, grew his business from a single Brooklyn store, founded in 1969, into the largest consumer electronics chain in the New York metropolitan area, fueled in large part by the spread of the VCR. At its peak, the chain had 43 stores, with locations as far north as Boston and as far south as Philadelphia.

As it expanded, Crazy Eddie also became famous for a memorable series of commercials starring an exuberant, fast-talking man many falsely believed to be Mr. Antar himself.