LEGOs remain a wildly popular toy among people of all ages, making them a hot commodity at stores across the country. The stock of LEGO products at one store in Oregon, however, has some allegedly sinister origins.
According to KVAL, police executed a search warrant at the Brick Builders store in Eugene, OR following a three-month investigation. Authorities claim they found evidence that the owner, Ammon Henrikson, was filling his shelves with new, unopened LEGO sets that were stolen from local retail stores and sold to the store, often for a meager payment in return.
"In many cases suspects stole hundreds of dollars' worth of LEGOs and then exchanged the stolen items for cash at the store, most often at a fraction of the actual retail value," local police told KVAL.
Springfield, OR police traced the stolen items to local Target, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, and Fred Meyer stores that have been dealing with loss prevention issues in recent months. By the end of the raid, they found 4,153 sets of Legos valued at more than $200,000 in total.
"We would watch people go into the store with LEGO and come out with cash in hand," Sergeant Kyle Potter told KEZI. “At that point we would stop people, we’d talk to them and they’d tell us exactly what they did."
"They were usually disgruntled on the amount of cash they got and when we talked to them," he added. "It was pennies on the dollars for what it was actually worth."
In a statement to KVAL, police chief Andrew Shearer declared the operation a success.
"We all feel the impact of organized retail theft through the increasing cost of items we buy for our families. Recognizing this, [Springfield Police Department]'s Crime Reduction Unit, with the support of our retail partners, works diligently to hold accountable those who make the choice to engage in or support retail theft," he said.
Henrikson and another man have been charged with organized retail theft and first-degree theft by receiving.
