Pasta-filling LEGO robber charged for $34,000 theft

Another LEGO theft has been reported, this time by a robber filling boxes with pasta and stealing $34,000 worth of pieces and minifigures.

The Irvine Police Department has taken to social media to share another tale of a LEGO theft. Though it's not quite on the same scale as the $1,000,000 worth of stolen LEGO sets that were recovered in Kern County.

The department has shared that a suspect purchased sets from Target, removing valuable minifigures and bags of elements from the boxes. They would sometimes replace the contents with dried pasta, but otherwise leave the boxes empty. For those curious, the department has identified the pasta as durum wheat semolina pasta specifically. Unfortunately, the replacement pasta wasn't even the printed LEGO tiles from 21359 Italian Riviera.

Images revealed as part of the social media report display 76269 Avengers Tower filled with nothing but pasta and several LEGO Star Wars sets' worth of loose bags and minifigures in boxes. It's stated that Target reported at least 70 thefts nationwide tied to the suspect, resulting in around $34,000 in losses.

The suspect has now been identified and arrested for grand theft, currently booked at the Orange County Jail. For those in the US who have opened their LEGO boxes and found only what they need for a pasta-centric meal, those days are hopefully over now that the thief has been arrested.

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