Between a news item and a heist worthy of a movie script, the police of Irvine, California, put an end to a scheme as simple as it was cheeky: a man bought boxes of LEGO at the house of Targetremoved the bricks and replaced them with… pasta before bringing them back.
The scheme lasted several months and affected stores across the United States, without the cash register teams suspecting that the carefully resealed boxes no longer contained a single colored block. However, a connection between incidents was enough to reveal a massive theft of LEGO throughout the network. Target.
LEGO theft at Target: what happened?
They identified Jarrelle Augustine28, from Paramount, California, suspected of orchestrating at least 70 fraudulent store returns Target spread across five states, including California, Texas and Florida. According to the police, the damage exceeds US$34,000, or around €32,000, in sets LEGO high-end and missing minifigs.
His modus operandi is precise: buy expensive boxes, extract the valuable pieces, then fill the boxes with branded durum wheat semolina pasta. Goya. For the agent Ziggy Azarconcited by the Journal de Montréal, these packages “produce almost the same sound” as bricks LEGO when you shake the box, which was enough to mislead the employees during returns.
The investigators of the Irvine Police Department cross-referenced videos from several stores before arresting Augustine and searching his home, where they claim to have seized two trash bags filled with LEGO. He is charged with grand theft and detained at theOrange County Jail while awaiting his trial. On Instagram, the police speak of a “pasta-tively terrible” plan and promise that any imitator “will be cooked al dente”, while Internet users blurt out “Pasta la Vista” and “everything is awesome” in comments.
Why are LEGOs so attractive to thieves today?
If such a heist targets plastic bricks, it is because the big sets LEGO are expensive. Between US$100 and US$400, or around €95 to €380, for certain boxes Star Wars Or Marveland much more once removed from the official catalog. On the secondary market, via eBay, BrickLink or Facebook Marketplace, rare minifigs are being sold at high prices, which is increasingly attracting networks of organized thieves.
This is not an isolated case: cards Pokemon stolen for tens of thousands of dollars, shops GameStop smashed into the ram car to snatch up games and consoles, geek products with high resale value have become easy targets. For buyers, a few reflexes are essential: check the seals and the plastic film, be wary of dented or re-taped boxes, and occasionally require detailed photos as well as a reliable seller profile before betting several hundred euros.
How can LEGO fans limit the risks?
This case should push major brands to tighten controls on returns of LEGO sets and other collectibles, even if it means opening suspicious boxes before putting them back on the shelves. Fans have already transformed the “pasta bandit” into a meme, but behind the jokes lies a less funny reality: the most sought-after toys and derivative products are now monitored almost like hardware, graphics cards or new generation consoles.