Legos are all over nowadays, consisting of criminal business. Previously in the week, California’s Organized Retail Crime Taskforce carried out a series of raids versus an unlawful fencing operation spread throughout 4 structures in LA and Orange counties. Throughout those raids, authorities discovered a collection of Lego sets approximated to be worth $300,000 general.
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Numerous products were taken from popular sellers like Target and Lowe’s, however the Legos were stated to comprise the bulk of taken item. According to CBS News, there were numerous boxes that they were lined up throughout the walls of the structures, and in many cases, had the ability to touch the ceiling. (As an ex-retail employee, lem me inform ya: headache circumstance needing to pull from the middle area of those stacks.) Lego sets can get quite expensive the more sophisticated they are, and boxes can use up a great deal of area, so it’s simple to image how loaded those structures need to’ve been.
4 arrests were made in connection to the fencing ring, whose ages vary from 35 to 47 years of ages. The suspects were then charged with arranged retail theft, grand theft, and conspiracy to dedicate a criminal offense. Per the LA Times, the quartet would go from shop to shop, with 2 of them swiping restricted edition box sets before stashing them throughout their numerous safehouses before offering them in-person or online.
If you weren’t mindful, this has really been going on for rather a long time. In December 2023, Inside Edition released a piece on what’s efficiently the Lego black market, where burglars took Legos throughout the vacations and offer them for a good rate, especially the restricted edition sets. A Lego shop in Las Vegas got struck 4 times within a month of opening, and the shopkeeper at the time stated $2,000 worth of item was taken.
Comparable theft rings exist for things like Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon It’s not too unexpected to hear this is occurring with Lego. Some sellers are attempting to include some friction to the procedure, primarily by locking the toys behind a case or covering them in a security bind you need to get rid of straight at the register.
A variation of this post initially appeared on Gizmodo