"Augustine allegedly identified Lego sets with high-value collectible pieces, bought them and brought them to his residence. Sometimes, he simply removed the valuable pieces. Other times, police said, he swapped out the entire set with dried pasta."
"If you shake the Lego boxes with the swapped contents, 'they basically make the same sound,' Azarcon said. 'Creative - that's for sure. This is something that we haven't seen done before, so it was definitely unique for our investigators to be able to put this together piece by piece.'"
An Irvine man was arrested for allegedly stealing Lego sets by replacing their contents with dried pasta before returning them to Target. This scheme has resulted in approximately $34,000 in stolen or damaged property across 70 incidents nationwide. Jarrelle Augustine, 28, faces grand theft charges and is linked to $4,000 in losses in Orange County alone. Investigators discovered a significant amount of contraband Lego pieces at his residence, indicating a unique method of theft not previously seen.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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