Items that have been stolen on a mass scale in the past six months: $100 million in French crown jewels, $70,000 in restaurant chairs (no, really), $104,000 in gold & silver coins, $10 million in three impressionist works of art, and approximately $486,565 in breaktime goodies during the Great Italian KitKat Heist. And all of those heists went down in only three countries — France, Italy, and Spain. We return stateside for this latest installment, for a crime that involved a little more than straight-up stealing. 28-year-old Jarrelle Augustine of Paramount, California was recently nabbed by Irvine PD for running a LEGO kit scheme all over the country. But Augustine wasn’t just stealing and reselling goods; he repeatedly bought the kits, replaced the contents with dry Goya pasta, and then returned them for full refunds, scoring an estimated $34,000 before he was caught and charged with grand theft LEGO. Target alone reported at least 70 incidents traced to Augustine! The New York Times built the full picture in their reporting:
Mr. Augustine was booked into the Orange County jail, and has since been released, according to jail records. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer.
One photo posted by the police shows an instruction book to a Star Wars Venator-Class Attack Cruiser, which retails for $79.99.
Another photo shows the box to a Marvel Avengers Tower Building Set, a 5,201-piece kit that retails for $499.99 on the Lego website. In the photo, several bags of Goya brand elbow-shaped pasta, which sell for less than $2 a bag, are in front of the box.
Lego kits can sell for hundreds of dollars, with a Lego Death Star, for example, posted at $999.99.
Some kits and minifigures have gained significantly in resale value, such as the Lego San Diego Comic-Con 2013 Spider-Man, which is assessed at more than $15,000, according to BrickEconomy, a site dedicated to the economics of Lego.
While the police made light of Mr. Augustine’s pasta-and-switch method, calling it a “pasta-tively terrible plan,” his scheme was just the latest in a trend of Lego thefts.
Thieves have targeted Lego products because of their high resale value in the underground market. Officials have said that the toys are targeted because the pieces and kits are small, untraceable and in high demand.
Read Hayes, a research scientist and criminologist at the University of Florida and the executive director of the Loss Prevention Research Council, said it was possible that Mr. Augustine’s use of uncooked pasta — which he described as “off the charts” — was meant to simulate the shifting sound of the pieces inside the box.
“They’re not just highly stolen, they’re highly purchased,” Mr. Hayes said. “Legos seem to be fairly persistent because they’re very good at coming out with new desirable things.”
In recent years the company has introduced Lego kits aimed at adults, including typewriters, trees and a model of the famous Paris cathedral Notre-Dame.
Many thieves work in pairs or groups, with one person as the reseller and another as the person committing the theft, Mr. Hayes said. The stolen pieces get resold in person and online.
On April 8, three California men were charged with cargo theft after being stopped while fleeing in two box trucks full of $1 million worth of Lego, the authorities said.
In October, the police broke up a Lego theft ring that focused on reselling the small character figurines that come with kits, the authorities said. Some thieves have managed to grab more than $10,000 worth of Lego in burglaries.
The Irvine Police Department urged others not to replicate Mr. Augustine’s scheme.
“If your master plan involves swapping LEGOs for linguine, we can promise your plan will be cooked al dente,” the police said.
“Read Hayes, a research scientist and criminologist … said it was possible that Mr. Augustine’s use of uncooked pasta … was meant to simulate the shifting sound of the pieces inside the box.” Uh, ya think?! No offense to the Executive Director of the Loss Prevention Research Council, but the dry, hard pasta mimicking the sound of LEGO pieces wasn’t merely “possible,” it was the whole point! And do they really not open the box when processing returns? Or did Augustine open them carefully and then reglued so the boxes appeared unopened? My bigger question is, he made the $34,000 by reselling the stolen boxless pieces, right? Once again, I run no risk of turning to a life of crime… simply because it just sounds like a lot of extra work!
PS — Man, when police departments go punny, they pun hard.
“If your master plan involves swapping LEGOs for linguine, we can promise your plan will be cooked al dente,” the police said.
Bad-um-tish
Ugh. I once bought a printer cartridge off the shelf at Target and went home to find two blocks of ivory soap. So back to Target. Half a day spent on purchasing a printer cartridge. One wonders how long they got away with it and how much they made.
I bought a motorcycle battery and there was an old battery in the package!
This is the dark side of big box stores having loose return policies. I suppose they’re well insured for the losses.
MightyMolly, I work at a big store. Stores, far as I know, are not insured for this sort of stuff, and take significant losses because of it (which corporate presumably then passes on to customers by raising prices). If the box looks sealed, you’re not supposed to open it to check, and if it IS open and you check, most of the time you get screamed at by the customer for “accusing” them of something. Retail is just so great.