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San Diego cops bust major Lego theft ring, $100K worth of toys stolen

SAN DIEGO - San Diego police made a major bust on Tuesday -- taking down an organized crime ring that was stealing Legos, Disney "Frozen" items and other merchandise from local toy stores.

And we're not talking about just petty shoplifting.

Detectives say there were five people in the ring and they hit five San Diego-area Toys R Us stores at least 30 times, sometimes more than once in the same day.

Surveillance video shows them walking right out of stores with shopping carts full of toys. All told, they made off with $100,000 worth of merchandise.

Three of the suspects have been arrested, a fourth is already in custody on an unrelated charge and the fifth suspect is on the run.

Damn, some more members leaving the site.

How dumb can you be ...

Haha, the reporter called them LEGOS.

How dumb can you be ...

​Pretty sure the news video sums it up... Leave with a shopping cart full of stolen goods, come back minutes later with empty carts, do it again, all the while security video catches a very good view of your face.

How dumb can you be ...

​This is how dumb!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/06jF1EG8o-Q

Sorry if I didn't embed the Youtube correctly!

Edited June 10, 201510 yr by binici
youtube link

I like the twitter comment

 

Can you imagine what $100k worth of #Legos looks like??

 

yes a lot of people can lol

I heard about this ring a few months ago... I suspected they were the people on Craigslist from escondido dumping NIB Legos that had not been on sale ever for well under MSRP. I haven't seen those postings recently.  

How dumb can you be ...

​No. It's how dumb is you...

I heard about this ring a few months ago... I suspected they were the people on Craigslist from escondido dumping NIB Legos that had not been on sale ever for well under MSRP. I haven't seen those postings recently.  

​Yep, I agree.  I actually saw an Escondido listing over the weekend, though.  So who knows.  But I know exactly what you are talking about.  They kept dumping Friends and Star Wars sets at over 50% off.

Those were some lazy store employees...  Maybe it's time to just stick a spider on every lego set and be done with it.

They need to make up their minds, with or without s ????

The title:

Exclusive: San Diego cops bust major Lego theft ring, $100K worth of toys stolen

But on 1st paragraph

SAN DIEGO - San Diego police made a major bust on Tuesday -- taking down an organized crime ring that was stealing Legos, Disney "Frozen" items and other merchandise from local toy stores. 

also need to decide if they can charge them with 100k of theft or actual retail value theft of about 70-75k

 

 

We had one of these last fall in Maine. My thought has been to find out what happens to the Lego's once the case/ trial is done. They either get returned to Walmart or sold at some type of auction. I work for Walmart and have never seen the police return anything from a seizure (seizures after the theft are generally rare). Not to mention the stores were not involved in any part of the investigation for the below case, it was handled at the home office level. If the seizure involves multiple stores it would be impossible to return to the originating store.

Not sure where to begin.

http://bangordailynews.com/2014/10/03/news/state/police-report-breaking-up-major-wal-mart-retail-theft-ring/

 

 

We had one of these last fall in Maine. My thought has been to find out what happens to the Lego's once the case/ trial is done. They either get returned to Walmart or sold at some type of auction. I work for Walmart and have never seen the police return anything from a seizure (seizures after the theft are generally rare). Not to mention the stores were not involved in any part of the investigation for the below case, it was handled at the home office level. If the seizure involves multiple stores it would be impossible to return to the originating store.

Not sure where to begin.

http://bangordailynews.com/2014/10/03/news/state/police-report-breaking-up-major-wal-mart-retail-theft-ring/

 

 

​Police auctions, no...?

​Police auctions, no...?

​I had this thought, but the items are owned by (in this case) Walmart. Not sure if they would sell and turn the money to Walmart.

If they eventually get turned over to Walmart, it would explain why periodically some of us find products that are 2-3 years old popping up in at random Walmart.

Well, now I know why I never see the Joker Bumper Car here in San Diego Toys R Us'

 

 

Definitely no members from here... they take all this risk and for what? $100k of Elsa's Frozen Castles? I am sure there were more promising sets to steal.

Law enforcement will keep none of the items as soon as case is closed and they are sentenced the items will go back to the stores.

Now I know why the simpson cmf are in security cases at my local TRU. Also noticed and increase of sets with security spiders in TRU & WM.

Now I see why TRU prices their sets higher. Inventory Shrink Tax.

  Obviously these people don't follow the rule of shearing the sheep many times versus skinning the sheep once.....but I'm honestly surprised organized shoplifting doesn't happen way more often. I was in a WAL-MART the other day and realized that noone there was going to be able to stop me (nevermind that they might be encouraged not to stop me) if I decided to confidently walk out. If one was working in a team and they weren't greedy, I'd imagine most stores wouldn't even notice.

It's actually pretty nice that an OVERWHELMING number of people follow the rules. 

Haha, the reporter called them LEGOS.

​Pretty sure the news video sums it up... Leave with a shopping cart full of stolen goods, come back minutes later with empty carts, do it again, all the while security video catches a very good view of your face.

I was at toyrsus last weekend w/ my kid.

All the larger boxes Lego sets on the shelves are now empty (like what some stores do with video games). You take the box up to the register, pay and the regular box is then given.  The mgr said the thiefs were just too much. Employees were getting hurt chasing people.  Thieves would just stockpile carts of Lego and push them out the exit.  Oh well... 

Oh, so that`s where all the "LEGOS" went....

*Facepalm*

 

  Obviously these people don't follow the rule of shearing the sheep many times versus skinning the sheep once.....but I'm honestly surprised organized shoplifting doesn't happen way more often. I was in a WAL-MART the other day and realized that noone there was going to be able to stop me (nevermind that they might be encouraged not to stop me) if I decided to confidently walk out. If one was working in a team and they weren't greedy, I'd imagine most stores wouldn't even notice.

It's actually pretty nice that an OVERWHELMING number of people follow the rules. 

I am willing to bet the loss prevention associate would have stopped you the second you walked out the door. The ones that are not in the back watching cameras are dressed as regular customers and show up in time. You would be surprised how much they catch..

Those were some lazy store employees...  Maybe it's time to just stick a spider on every lego set and be done with it.

​Regular employees are told not to pursue thieves. There's too much liability if they get hurt. I pointed out someone dashing out into the parking lot and loading their car with stolen goods and just received a shrug and a "there's nothing we can do."