An Oregon man’s Lego business was crippled after a weekend police raid in Eugene. A three-month investigation into organized retail theft led them to a company called Brick Builders, where more than 4,000 allegedly stolen items were found, according to the Springfield Police Department’s Facebook page. LEGO sets, often rare, are worth more than $200,000.
Brick Builders is a third-party LEGO store that sells sets and individual pieces to collectors. LEGO sets are expensive and so popular that there are many independent stores operating across the United States.
Brick Builders first opened in 2017 and is known for snapping up rare sets. Some of the inventory was stolen from local stores such as Target and Barnes & Noble, according to Springfield police.
America is in a moral panic over shoplifting. Over the past few years, retailers have self-reported an increase in theft in their stores, but the reality is difficult to quantify. Whatever the actual numbers, concerns about shoplifting have led police to refocus the issue. That’s what happened in Springfield, Oregon.
Larger retail stores have dedicated loss prevention professionals who monitor the store for theft and investigate crimes. They are not police themselves but often work with police. Brick Builders took action after working with loss prevention personnel from Target, Fred Meyer and Barnes & Noble, according to the Springfield Police Department. They noticed people stealing a lot of LEGO sets from these locations and tracked them to Brick Builders, where they allegedly unloaded the merchandise.
Thieves would sell these large and expensive sets to Brick Builders employees, often for a fraction of their retail price, according to police. “That store has all the Legowise stuff you could want, but you’ll pay a premium. When I tried to complete the game, I only stumped them on two things. Any Lego fan can find a set to drool over set,” one commenter on the LEGO subreddit said in response to the news. “But he was very difficult to deal with. I was a little surprised by that though. I don’t know how he thought he wouldn’t get caught.
Police posted the haul on Facebook, posing in front of a mountain of Lego bricks. The store’s owner and an employee were charged with organized retail theft and larceny I for receiving stolen merchandise. The maximum penalties and authorities for both charges were recently increased in Oregon, in part due to concerns about an increase in thefts in the area.
The crime of organized theft alone carries a potential two-year prison sentence. “We are all feeling the impact of organized retail theft as the costs of items we buy for our families continue to rise,” Springfield police said in a statement on their Facebook page.
