This one's no child's play even if Lego bricks are involved. A 40-year-old man in Reno, Nevada, has been charged with stealing Lego brick sets worth around US$ 200,000. However, it wasn't passion for the game but the more basic greed of financial gains that drove William Swanberg, charged with two counts of felony theft and one count of attempted felony theft, to commit the crime.
The colorful plastic bricks, which are a hit with children, were stolen from Oregon, Arizona, California, Utah and Nevada stores of the retailer Target. Swanberg's modus operandi was changing the bar codes of the boxes containing the Lego bricks and passing off expensive sets for cheaper ones, said Troy Dolyniuk, a Washington County detective. How Swanberg managed to switch the bar codes is not clear.
The con would then put the bricks up for sale over the Internet. Since 2002, he managed to sell Lego sets worth around US$ 600,000, records obtained from Bricklink.com, a site for ardent Lego collectors, have shown.
Swanberg was nabbed, when on November 17, he was heading out of a Target store in Portland after buying 10 Star Wars Millennium Falcon sets. A security guard stopped him at the exit and the police were summoned. A search of Swanberg's his car revealed 56 Star Wars sets and 27 other Lego toy sets. In addition, a laptop retrieved from the car showed addresses of other Target stores in the area and their maps.
A grand jury in Hillsboro in Portland has set a bail of US$ 250,000 bail for Swanberg's release. The number of Lego sets he stole was so huge that the US Postal Inspector agents who scoured his residence had to use a six-meter truck to seize the stolen goods found there.
Lego sets, available in 90 colors as bricks, gears and mini-figures, were invented by Danish Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1934. The game, which is targeted towards children above the age of six years, has millions of fans, including adults, worldwide, spawning many Web sites meant for collectors to swap, sell and buy rare Lego sets. Christiansen coined the term 'Lego' from the Danish phrase 'leg godt', which means 'play well'.
