Irvine police have arrested a man on suspicion of stealing Lego pieces by removing them from their boxes and replacing them with dried pasta. The man would then allegedly return the boxes to Target for a refund.
The scheme — carried out in states across the country — added up to $34,000 in stolen or damaged property from 70 known or suspected incidents, according to investigators.
Jarrelle Augustine, 28, faces a charge of grand theft and was booked Tuesday at the Orange County Jail. He was arrested at an apartment in Paramount but is from Texas, said Ziggy Azarcon, public information officer for the Irvine Police Department.
According to Irvine police, the department became involved in December after Augustine bought and then returned two Lego sets — with a combined value of $350 — from a Target store in Irvine. He was connected to other suspicious merchandise returns through credit card records. All told, he may be responsible for about $4,000 in stolen or damaged merchandise from Targets in Orange County since November, Azarcon said.
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.”
At the suspect’s residence, investigators found enough contraband Lego pieces to fill two garbage bags. Although the alleged heist method was unique, the targeting of Lego is not.
Lego thefts have been recorded across the country, many with high-value hauls.
In Charlotte, N.C., a former Wells Fargo banker was accused of “fencing” hundreds of thousands of dollars of “highly lucrative” Lego products stolen from area Walmart and Target stores.
In that case, a jury found Ryan Thomas Cahill guilty in November 2025 of felony receiving or possessing retail property obtained by organized retail theft exceeding $100,000, according to published reports.
In 2024, Los Angeles police announced they’d uncovered a Lego theft ring. Officers arrested two people and seized more than 2,800 boxes of Lego toys stockpiled in a Long Beach home. Individual boxes varied in value from $20 to more than $1,000.
While the officers were conducting their investigation at the suspect’s home, “potential buyers of the toys arrived, lured by advertisements placed … on internet sales sites,” police said.
Around that same time, investigators were trying to unravel a possibly unrelated local smash-and-grab theft ring targeting Lego toys. Suspects cased stores, then, after closing time, smashed windows and headed straight to the highest-value Lego sets.
Other recent cases unfolded in San Jose; Santa Rosa; Mojave; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Eugene, Ore. The Oregon case allegedly involved buying Lego sets stolen from various merchants that were to be resold at a different store. More than 4,000 sets were recovered, police said.
High-value pieces or mini-figures include those associated with themed characters or superheroes. Examples include pieces related to Marvel, Star Wars or Harry Potter.
As for the latest arrest, it’s not clear what Augustine was doing with the pieces, but there’s no indication he was using them for creative play on his living room floor.
“We don’t know exactly what he was doing, but we know there is a secondary market to be able to sell these collectible figures,” Azarcon said.
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