A man from California has been taken into custody for allegedly orchestrating a bold scam involving the substitution of Lego pieces with uncooked pasta.
Jarrelle Augustine, a 28-year-old resident of Paramount, reportedly purchased expensive Lego sets from Target outlets nationwide at least 70 times. He is accused of swapping the original contents with pasta before returning the boxes for refunds, as detailed by the Irvine Police Department.
Authorities claim Augustine amassed over $34,000 through this deceitful operation before his arrest on Thursday, where he faced charges of grand theft.
Target employees became aware of the scam after customers, expecting to find Lego pieces but discovering pasta instead, lodged complaints, as reported by Fox 8.
Upon being informed of the fraudulent activity, the police conducted surveillance at various Target locations across Orange County, eventually identifying Augustine as the perpetrator.
Among the items collected as evidence was a manual for assembling a Star Wars Venator-Class Attack Cruiser, which retails for $80, according to images shared by the police department online.
Another picture showed the box to a Marvel Avengers Tower Building Set, a 5,201-piece kit that retails for $500 on the Lego website.
Several bags of Goya brand elbow-shaped pasta, which sell for less than $2 a bag, are seen in front of the box.
Jarrelle Augustine, 28, of Paramount, was arrested on Thursday in connection with a nationwide scheme in which he would swap out Lego pieces for uncooked pasta
Target officials eventually caught on to his thieving ways after customers purchased the Lego sets, found pasta instead, and complained to employees at their stores
Augustine was booked into the Orange County jail for his alleged crimes, but has since been released, The New York Times reports.
In the meantime, Target is expected to continue auditing its inventory to determine whether any other pasta-filled boxes remain on the shelves or in the return cycle, Fox 11 reports.
Prosecutors will also review the 70-linked cases to determine whether any additional charges could be filed across the various jurisdictions where the thefts occurred.
But Augustine is not the only alleged thief to target Legos.
On April 8, three California men were charged with cargo theft after being stopped while fleeing in two box trucks filled with $1 million worth of the plastic bricks, and in October, police in the Golden State broke up a Lego theft ring that focused on reselling small character figurines.
Some thieves have even managed to grab more than $100,000 worth of Legos in burglaries – as the bricks can sell for hundreds of dollars, according to The Times.
The Lego Death Star retails for about $1,000, for example, and some kits and minifigures have seen their prices widely market up, 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 Legos.
Read Hayes, a research scientist and criminologist at the University of Florida who also serves as executive director of the Loss Prevention Research Council, said it was possible Augustine’s use of uncooked pasta was meant to simulate the sound the pieces make inside the box.
A photo released by the Irvine Police Department showed the box to a Marvel Avengers Tower Building Set, a 5,201-piece kit that retails for $500 on the Lego website. Several bags of Goya brand elbow-shaped pasta, which sell for less than $2 a bag, are seen in front of the box
Another photo showed the manual to building a Star Wars Venator-Class Attack Cruiser, which retails for $80
‘They’re not just stolen, they’re highly purchased,’ he said of the brick-building toy.
‘Legos seem to be fairly persistent because they’re very good at coming out with new, desirable things,’ Hayes noted of the company, which has expanded its market to include Lego kits aimed at adults – including a model of the Notre-Dame cathedral.
But the Irvine Police Department is now urging others not to replicate Augustine’s scheme.
‘If your master plan involves swapping Legos for linguine, we can promise your plan will be cooked al dente,’ the department wrote on Facebook.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Target for comment.
