July 2, 2026 • 60 mins
LEGO sets. Everybody loves them, crimers love to steal them. They're light, valuable, in demand, and untraceable. Perfect for illicit maneuvers! There are many ways to steal LEGOs; here are some of our favorites. This episode approved for listeners ages 4 - 99.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hi, Sarah, Elizabeth, what's up?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Not much? How you've been I'm pretty good?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Been good. I've been good.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I've been good.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yeah, I yes. How about you? You good?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm yes.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I think we're all good.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah, solidly good. I love your h What is that
Giraft print?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Draft prints. Yeah, that was a cool graft onesie.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'd be so overheated in a onesie.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Rh uh. You know it's ridiculous, I do. And I'm
so glad you asked, because I've been just buckling over
here waiting to tell you. Because it's like, Sarah, did
you dream this? I'm like, no, I didn't. I checked.
They didn't dream this. This is actually real. Imagine you're
on a plane, right and you're in first class and
you look over in first class with you are Charlie
Sheen and Nicholas Cage.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Oh nothing, seated.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Together, traveling together? Thank you all? Amused?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Right?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Well. Charlie Sheen recently told the story, and I forgot
because I left out my favorite part of the story.
Charlie Sheen was carrying two ounces of cocaine on him.
He was muling drugs with Nicholas Cage.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Course he was.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
No, of course he was. The way he tells the
story quote, they still had that curtain separating first class,
so we'd pull the curtain back with the mic and
say something really goofy and get a couple laughs. And
then the mic winds up in Cage's grip and he
saw the tone that we had set, but he chose
to take it where he did. He impersonated the captain
that he's not feeling well and he's losing control of
(01:27):
the airplane. It was like right out of the movies,
like you hear people start screaming, like there's always that
high pitched female scream in the movies. That happened right.
So we were in a panic, and he didn't know
the amount of cocaine I had on me, two ounces
in a fat ziplock taped to the inside of my
inner thigh. So the steward walks right up to him
and points him right in the face and says, not cool, mister,
(01:49):
not cool. And that was about ten minutes before landing,
so we kind of knew we might have company, but
I still had a measure of good will with the
passengers because nobody knew at that point, I was a
drug so we were detained. Now it could get a
lot worse. But it was that thing again where a
couple of guys were Cage fans, a couple of guys
were chine fans. We could feel it start to turn
(02:11):
in our favor. Sorry, and that's when the first wave
of relief hits. This is not going to be a
life changing evening. So what right? I mean the idea
that he's muling cocaine and he's like, you know who
I should bring with me while I mule cocaine, Nicholas Cage,
and then Nicolas Cage does what Nicolas Cage does, and
(02:31):
Trojans like, oh man, and then these two charmed. The
way out of things like that is just.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Row up and row up, be a grown man.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
This is why crime is not fair. It's because some
people just skate by on things like hey, I'm Charlie Sheen.
Other people are like, I did the smallest thing and
I lost.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
My whole life for exactly exactly ridiculous. That is ridiculous.
Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Messing
with the house of brick, This is ridiculous. Crime. A
(03:20):
podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis and cons it's
always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Are you damn right?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I got a request for an episode from a long
time day one.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Rude dude Nice.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
He had something that he wanted to hear us talk about.
And he's someone maybe the only person on this planet
that I will do whatever he asks. Really, yeah, that
rude dude is my nephew.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I was wondering, who do you hook me on that
last one? I was like, who could this guy?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
He is newly seven years old, no longer obsessed with Batman.
His new love Legos. Oh yeah, all about I can
see Legos. So I got him two sets for his birthday.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Nice, and his only.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Request is that they be for eighteen and over and
have like thousands of pieces.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
He's so smart.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Eighteen like adult Legos.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
I want the hardest ones you can Legos after Dark.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, he just like, I don't want this children's stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I didn't know that they did age categorizations by difficulty.
Now he has the DeLorean from Back to the Future
that he made articulated parts. It's huge. When I was
a kid, Legos just like came in bins or whatever,
and they were like all sorts of random colors and
shapes and sizes and like you get what I'm talking
(04:44):
about totally or.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Also in the collection would be like you could do
like say, one of five different things, and like the
castle was the hardest, the barn is the easiest or whatever.
Castle and barn.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
But you know, now, those buckets of bricks are hard
to come by. They're all about sets now, and like
you and I have adult friends who love Lego sets.
Oh yeah, they buy the absolutely enormous ones to build.
It's like a whole world out there, and I didn't
really know about.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It, Oh my god. And all the minifigure they call
it minifigs, minifigs. It's all about those two because like
there's rare ones, there's combinations, there's like I got to
get this one hat or whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Right right, all the accessories. I've learned a lot about
Legos lately, and when I learn about things, I always
want to know how they can also be crimes? Do
is this crime? Is this crime adjacent? Is this thing
ever valuable? Can it be stolen or become like a
fraud bearing item?
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, So the answer Zaren is yes. And today I'm
going to tell you about Lego crime. But first let's
learn a little about Lego, shall.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
We Lego itself?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Lego itself. It was August tenth, nineteen thirty two Billund Denmark,
a carpenter named Ole Kirk christians started a business making toys,
and in nineteen thirty four he renamed the company Lego.
And this comes from the Danish phrase of leg gout,
(06:11):
meaning play well ok. And the name also happens to
mean I put together or I assemble in Latin.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, it's a beautiful synchronicity.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
So Lego stayed Wooden into the nineteen forties, I remember this, Yeah,
But after World War Two it was all about plastics, baby.
So Christiansen he started experimenting with these like plastic injection
molding technologies.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Because before then is basically like Lincoln logs, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah. And so in nineteen forty nine Lego introduced these
really rudimentary interlocking plastic bricks. And it was Ole Kirk's son,
Godfred Kirk Christiansen who changed the game. So he took
the helmet Lego the same year that his dad passed
away nineteen fifty eight, Lego rolled out. It's now I
(07:00):
bricks system. I don't think those two events were related,
the death and the rollout. So they got that like
stud and tube coupling design. They call it patented, and
that's the design you see in the bricks today. And
Godfred's time in charge saw this period of like absolutely
crazy growth for Lego in the sixties and the seventies,
(07:23):
Lego went from just like this Danish toy maker to
an internationally recognized mega brand.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I was wondering when they went international sixties.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
And sixties and seventies, and while the design didn't change,
they just kept innovating and evolving. So in nineteen sixty
nine they made Lego duplo blocks okay yeah, yeah, easy
little hands, not a choking hazard, and they I don't
think there is this painful to step on.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Probably not, probably not.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
In nineteen seventy eight they launched Lego Minifigures anifigs, and
those are those small posable figures with interchangeable snap on hair, the.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Whole thing, the whole tame half the.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Head, yeah, legs come off. Yeah. So Godfred's son killed
Kirk Christensen, thank you, It's probably wrong. He became CEO
in nineteen seventy nine, and he continued the expansion. He
like went super worldwide.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Their generation goes up.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, he started building Lego Land theme parks.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Oh wow, he's the one.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
He's the one. So by the late nineties early two thousands, though,
Lego was having serious money trouble. Why they expanded way
beyond bricks, like the theme parks, video games, clothing, that
sort of thing, okay, and they kind of neglected the
bricks and so kids they're being sold video games and
they forgot about Legos, right, kind of the way they
(08:46):
forgot about Dre.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Never forget about Dre.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
So by two thousand and three, two thousand and four,
Lego was on the brink of bankruptcy. Really yeah, boo,
we don't like that. This led to a may you're restructuring.
So Jorgan Big Nudstorp, h that's not an Ikea product.
That's a guy who was a former McKenzie consultant. He
(09:10):
got named CEO and he was the first person outside
of the Kirk Christensen family to lead the company. Right,
So Nudstorp's turnaround strategy was like super precise. He divested
the non core businesses so he sold the Lego Land
parks to Merlin Entertainments.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Interesting, but they.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, they stayed Lego Land and the Christiansen's family holding
company kept a steak okay, franchised it out. Yeah, and
then he put the focus back on the core brick product.
I love it, you know, you love fundamentals. So doing
that involved rebuilding the company's entire licensing strategy. So they
set up partnerships with Star Wars back in nineteen ninety nine,
(09:55):
and then they just doubled down on it. They locked
in Harry Potter, Marvel, Mario Brothers, a bunch of other
major franchises. Yes, okay, and that's the Lego.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
We know today that all the kids know.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah. So the whole comeback was legendary. No other toy
company had come back from the.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Brink like that. Really.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, Galube was looking up at Lego from the bottom
of a cliff like whispering for them, like, just go on,
make toys proud. That's a deep cut. Yeah. So Lego
went from the brink of bankruptcy to being the world's
largest toy maker by revenue.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
So this is what this is, like what Erector set
never figured out how to correct.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Correct. Ownership of the company is still in family hands.
That family leadership recently passed to a fourth generation, and
that's Thomas Kirk Christiansen. He took over his chair of
the board of directors from his dad. The Kirk Christiansen family.
As of twenty twenty two, it was the wealthiest family
in Denmark net worth of about thirty two point eight
(11:00):
billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, it's been good to them. Yeah, and the company
is still doing bang up business. So they had twenty
twenty four revenue of seventy four point three billion Danish kroner,
which is like eleven point four billion American dollars. They
had an operating income of about almost three billion US
dollars net income of two point one two billion American dollars.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Not bad.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
The world's largest toy company by sales. So those sets
aren't cheap, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
No, I've been shopping for nieces and nephews one hundreds of.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Dollars of some of them. The Death Star from Star
Wars has almost ten thousand pieces and it costs a grand. Yeah.
Then there's there's a segrata familia one. They've got the
gouty cathedral that just completed almost one hundred and fifty
years of construction.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
So did Lego have to wait for the last piece,
the last piece that they release it? Now we can
sell it.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
It's twelve thousand pieces and it sets you back eight
hundred dollars and it takes one hundred and forty four
years to complete. Just like the cathedral, it has like
stained glass really inside. Yeah, So with those high dollar values.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Comes crime naturally.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
All of the Lego crimes I have for you today
are relatively recent, and I'm sure there are historical ones,
but I think that right now is the ripest time for.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
These, yeah, because the value has gone.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So yeah, we're at a stage where the sets are
expensive and there's a collector's market, and so it's gone
from kids toy, although the classic sets have always had
ages four to ninety nine on the age range, and
then to like an all ages craft system, to like
collectors fetish, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
And also, by the way, once you turn a hundred,
you can no longer play with Legos legally.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Sorry you're restricted.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Did you not see the box y?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm sorry you're gonna have to.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
It's a choking hazard. Put it down.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
And stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
It's a choke.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
So you know, people like they get the boxes now,
those types of things, they never opened the box, like
those kind of oh wow, right into it.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I didn't like that. When I was a kid, I'd
have friends like that. They would buy like two of
the same toy, they play with one, they put one
in the box or keep it in the box, and
I'd always be like, I'm a terrible person. I always
be so tempted to like spill something on like.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Oh yeah, I just don't get it, like you never did.
That's that fetishization. The toy is a toy, do what
you need, but it's like preserved for eternity.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
But then again, I'm also not rich, so I think
there's a These are a one to one relationship, and
those friends often hard hail. Well, well interesting, so put
that did you do that math for yourself?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Exactly? Well, Like, here's the other thing about Lego sets.
They're small, light, universally recognized, carry no serial numbers, so
they're untraceable. Oh yeah, and so the Lego atmosphere that
we're living to move distributing siren called totally like come hither.
So let's start with one that I find particularly hilarious.
(13:56):
We've got Jirell Augustine. He's a twenty eight year old
guy from Amount, California, and that's the city in La
County between Bellflower and Compton. So this went down in
like late twenty twenty five, early twenty twenty six. Oh
real reason, Yeah, dateline, Irvine, California. So the Irvine Police Department,
they are tipped off that someone had purchased and then
(14:17):
returned two Lego sets together worth three hundred and fifty
bucks from the target in Irvine. And like, buying something
and returning it isn't a crime, but swapping the contents
with something else's and what's that something else? Well, Augustine
allegedly put dried pasta into Star Wars and Marvel lego boxes.
(14:39):
Well yeah, well I'll tell you so it would like
mimic that rattle and the approximate way of the bricks
shifting around. He'd reseal the boxes, return them to Target
stores for cash refunds. Sure, I investigated the greeny photos
put out by the police department, and it looks like
he was using Goya brand Elbow macaroni.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Oh you really did the research.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
The research it was in like plastic bags. Because the bricks.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Are individual may need a lot of different sound.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Effects, and he hit them all. So the targets were
deliberately chosen for their resale value. There's this Irvine PD
public information officer Ziggy as our Cone. He told CBS
News that the Star Wars and Marvel sets carry a
really high value on the secondary collector's market, and they
figured that like the bricks themselves were then sold off separately,
(15:29):
so it wasn't just that he's returning them to get
the cash back. There are all these online resale channels
for collectible legosh like basically a flea market.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
My sister sells many figs that are like custom and
she'll buy like whole lots and then pick out the
ones that are valuable and then sell those as like
I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
There's a market. And then there was another incident in
Orange County. A Target staffer opened a return box expecting
lego bricks, found the dry pasta. So it wasn't just
a one store, one state operation. Irvine police say Augustine
ran the playbook about seventy times at Target stores in California, Tennessee, Texas,
(16:12):
New Jersey, Florida. He pulled in about thirty four thousand
dollars from this scam.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
That's not I thought you were going to say, like Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
He went up and down forty. Yeah, they found unboxed
Lego bricks absolutely stockpiled inside his house when they raided
it April fifteenth, twenty twenty six. And then after he
was arrested, he gets booked in on grand theft charges. Yeah,
this wasn't an anomaly. Cops were seeing more and more
(16:42):
Lego theft a crime wave, and there were big jobs.
Augustine was small spaghetti compared to some of these, according
to money Wise quote. Just a week before Augustine's arrest,
on April eighth, Kern County deputies recovered roughly one million
dollars worth of stolen Lego sets after spotting two Amazon
(17:02):
branded box trucks fleeing a scene in Mojave. Investigators later
located two abandoned freight trailers that had been stolen while
transporting goods from Fort Worth, Texas to Morino Valley, California.
Three Southern California men were booked on cargo theft, possession
of stolen vehicle, and conspiracy. Charges a million dollars in legos.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
That's nuts.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I don't think ole Kirk Christensen could have imagined all. No,
let's take a break when we come back. More Lego crime.
(17:51):
Zaren So, we've had shoplifting and truck chases, but that's
not all. Six months before the Amazon truck heist, Santa Rosa,
California police served a warrant at a house. Inside was
a Lego movie version of a CSI crime scene. Okay, so,
as money Wise again puts it, quote tens of thousands
(18:14):
of loose pieces scattered across desks, hundreds of minifigures beheaded
and sorted by facial expression, an open set stacked along
the hallway walls. Wow, I just like the beheaded figures.
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
I mentioned earlier that my sister, her youngest child, got
into legos and then she would have to in to
buy them on like Amazon or whatever eBay, and she
realized how valuable they were because just trying to get
him their exact right one, She's like, forget buying these,
I'm gonna start selling them. And she makes bank doing this,
and he's like her expert. He's like telling you her,
like you need to get this one and you know
these are the best ones. And then so she figures
(18:52):
out the market from him and his friends and like
it's a brilliant, Like I wish I had a head
for this kind of business, or like the patients to sort.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
All the heads and by facial expression.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
But that's the thing is, like you get down to
that where it's like I just am not gonna sit
there with a magnifying glass on like an extendo arm
and I'm checking all the faces. I'm like, I can't
do it, no matter how much you can give me
a million dollars. I'm like, I'm passing.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Has made me sort through a bin of minifigures looking
for specific hair color hair yes, and I'm just like,
we'll just pretend it's this color.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
That's where you and I a line where like purple
as black, as gray, whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It's what you wanted to be. Have some have some imagination.
So the stuff in this house in Santa Rosa valued
at like six grand.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
This like serial killer house.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Cerial color heads everywhere. It was basically lego fencing, and
the ring leader got charged with organized retail theft. And
there's another one before that, Sarah before they hit Charlotte,
North Carolina. Okay, And it wasn't a career kerminel He
was a former Wells Fargo banker, which maybe that means
he was zing anyway, So the guy fenced more than
(20:01):
one hundred thousand dollars in stolen legos that were gained
from local Target and Walmart stores, and he was moving
the bricks through an eBay account called Brick by Brick
b r Ik by brik gotcha. So if you bought
any legos from him, you're sitting on hot bricks. In
two thousand and five, a guy in Reno, Nevada named
(20:23):
William Swanberg stole about two hundred thousand dollars in lego
sets from Target stores across five western states.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
He's a two thousand and five yes, so they did
not be worth like a million dollars, yes, probably. How
did he do it, Zon Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
He switched the barcodes on the boxes.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
How do you switch the He got.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Pinched, Yeah, he got pinched when he was stopped by
a Target security guard at a Portland area store. Okay,
And he just bought ten boxes of the Star Wars
Millennium Falcon set. And at first I thought they were
talking about the giant one that goes for eight hundred
and fifty dollars on the Lego website. Sure now, and
that set. Those sets get rave reviews on the Lego website.
(21:05):
There are some bad ones. Let me read you a
little from my favorite. I got kind of down a
rabbit hole looking at bad Lego reviews. This is just excerpts,
but the title of the review is I got a
bad feeling about this. It's clever. On face value, it's
absolutely beautiful to look at, and I am cringing on
(21:26):
the inside because the spelling is so bad.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Anyway, You've got to learn to get over that online
stuff on face as long as you like, yes, actually
can use a K. Why not?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
On face value, it's absolutely beautiful to look at. The
level of exterior detail is incredible, and building was both
challenging and fun. However, I do have some issues with
the set. Firstly, minifigures. I like that they chose to
include characters from the old and the new. However, every
photo I have sent this to be it friends or family.
(21:59):
The first question is where is R two or obi wan?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Wait a minute, By the way, none of those words
sounded like words that were difficult to spell.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Wow, Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah. So the review goes on much longer than that,
but I love that this builder sent a photo of
it to important people in their life, and the folks
where's our two? Or like no, no, obi wan, what's up?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Where's not?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Like Wow, that's an impressive build, or like where are
you going to store that? They're just like disappointed that
the whole gang isn't there. You know, don't take it
out on Lego that you have lousy friends and family. Yeah,
where's chewy chewy? Okay? So back to Swanburg, the guy
with the bar codes, he actually took the smart Play
(22:50):
Millennium Falcon. That one goes for about one hundred bucks.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
The smart Play Apparently.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Smartplay has some sort of smart bricks. I looked up
that that product of the Lego website, and it's Smartplay compatible.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
I don't know it's Smartplay.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I think it's like some automated brick thing are like mechanical.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Okay, so mais.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
People were mad it was it's listed as smart Play,
but it doesn't come with the smart Play brick. I
am I noped out. I was like all right, you're mad. Okay,
that's one hundred dollars down the drains. So Swanberg he
got stopped by security at Target and they called the cops,
according to NBC News quote, in his parked car, detectives
(23:31):
found fifty six of the Star Wars sets he valued
at ninety nine dollars each, as well as twenty seven
other Lego sets in a laptop found inside Swanberg's car.
Investigators also found the addresses of numerous Target stores in
the Portland area, theirre locations carefully plotted on a mapping
software like I love the logistics, hate the petty crime.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
You know, you go, I'm like, why not have a
paper map? You can just circle them? But that's me.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
All those sets, Like the car is just like jam
packed with Lego box Totally.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
You're a hoarder now in your.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Car, right and a laptop. So Swanberg, he is accused
of switching the bar codes. He would take the barcode
from a cheaper set and stick it over the sticker
on an expensive set.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
And there's this Lego collector's website called bricklink dot com,
and records there show that Swanberg sold nearly six hundred
thousand dollars worth of legos between two thousand and two
and when he was caught in two thousand and five.
That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yeah, especially since now it's worth three.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Million dollars five billion. Another person who pulled that scam
was a Silicon Valley executive. What yeah, like people just
can't help themselves. Thomas Loangenbach, forty seven years old, vice
president at SAP Labs in Palo Alto SAP Labs Integration
and Certification Center. He was also switching barcodes. So Liz
(25:01):
Wiley of the Mountain View Police Department said, quote, this
probably happens more often than you'd think, but this is
the first time we've ever had a case like this.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I'm kind of betting. I mean, these guys seem to be,
in my opinions, a little arrogant about the target employees.
Oh yeah, I think that they would see what comes
up when they ring it, and if it's like clearly
not indicating what you're looking at, that that would be
a flag. Because these people do know that there's theft
at targets, So it doesn't matter that you look like
a tech bro. If it says like you know whatever.
(25:30):
I can't think of fast enough of different Star Wars
stuff that it could be versus like some cheap set
that it would be. But like you think they would
be like that doesn't match. I see this stuff go by,
you know, all day long.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah, well, so here's Langenbach. He's living in a multimillion
dollar house in San Carlos, California. Wow, swapping out barcoes
to cheat Target out of legos. Yes, and like. According
to NBC Bar Area Quote Supervising Deputy District Attorney Cindy
Seeley Hendrickson said Monday that internal Target security spotted something
(26:05):
awry with Longdenbock's purchases from their stores. That's three alleged
burglaries from the Mountainview store on Showers Drive and one
from the Cooper Tino store on Steven's Creek Boulevard over
the last month or so. Wiley of Mountainview Police said
Target security had captured Longenboc performing the quote ticket switch
on camera and had been onto him. Because the company
(26:26):
pays very close attention to legos, you would think, I mean,
they locked that stuff up now just because of these
kind of guys.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And also, wouldn't you like if you were him and
you're in the you know, Silicon Valley area, Like why
wouldn't you just like you buy the cheaper bricks, you
buy the more expensive bricks. You go and you know,
switch the stickers in your like garage, and then you
go get like some you know, numskull twenty year old
who's like an intern, and you go, I'm gonna I'm
gonna take you on the corporate ladder, but I'm gonna
(26:53):
need to try you out. So first it need you
to handle like you know, and you give them like
your dry cleaning, and then the legos and you go
go Target and return these and everything you give them
is a fake name and a fake address. You meet
him like a library parking lot.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
He gets okay, So for that incident, right, he gets
charged with four counts of burglary for seven boxes. Yeah,
seven box worth one thousand dollars. Oh my huge, he's
only making it doesn't seem like a lot. But Sarah
and I want.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
You to just write by scale.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Let's go back to NBC B Area quote. When police
searched his house, Hendrickson said they found hundreds and hundreds
of Lego boxes inside. They also discovered that since last April,
he had allegedly sold twenty one hundred Lego items totally
about thirty thousand dollars on eBay. Using the handle Tom's
Brickyard inside his car, Hendrickson said, we're thirty two pre
(27:45):
made barcode stickers, so at least he's bringing them, not
like trying to do it in the store, but he
like picks it up and is trying to fly.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
That should be smart approach.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It with those barcode stickers. He would buy a two
hundred and seventy nine dollars box of Millennium fire and
Legos for just forty nine dollars, and then he also
did like the ninety dollars Anakin Lego set for thirty five,
so he was targeting Star Wars.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Yeah, he's basically just scraping value like a mid level mobster.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yes, yes, Now, the other fellas I've told you about
all seemed to do this theft as their main source
of income. But not this guy. No, he just loved
the challenge.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
It's a game for him.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Another Lego maniac who couldn't help himself was Winston Love.
Do you remember that commercial Zach Zach? He has a legomaniac.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Wasn't somebody famous one of the people. Probably I was
thinking like Jack Black or something like that.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
You know what, that kid was going to go far.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
He's a lego.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Maybe Ryan Goslin. I don't know, somebody I feel.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Like something like that. Oh yeah, Winston Love, that's a
great name. He's just another twenty eight year old who
doesn't know any better. It's all started Halloween twenty twenty
five and a Target employee in Wataga, Texas called the police.
A guy who turned out to be Winston Love grab
(29:01):
more than twelve hundred dollars in Lego sets and then
made a run for it out of the store, and
the cops tracked. Yeah, he was just like macOS, watch this,
try and catch me.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Car.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
The cops tracked him to where he lives. No, yeah, anyway,
They get to his house.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
No name, Texas town. I'm sure everyone in the parking
lot I could tell you who it was.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
They get to the house. He refuses to come out.
That's that's bad business right there. But the officers they
talked to him, they like coax him out. They're like,
you can come out and surrender peacefully.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
So he does, cousin Winston, you need to come out.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Then they go inside his house and they find five
thousand dollars in cash, narcotics, weapons, So narcotics aren't part
of the wholesome lego lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Not typically it's like let's do a bunch of meth
and put together legos.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Well maybe it's taken apart. They take them. But what
started as a single target theft quickly revealed a much
larger pattern. So, according to Wataga Police Chief Jim Lewis,
when Winston got arrested, police were aware of twenty three
local incidents just prior, like within the last two months.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I take it back. Apparently he was able to and
then like eighty.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Other incidents is tracked to him, like since they started,
like they had initially.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Found the other on top of the three.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah, twenty three just in the last two months, but
they had been following him for a little bit longer.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, I take it all back.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
When he got arrested, he had eight outstanding felony warrants
for similar thefts all across North Texas, Okay, Dallas, Plano, Frisco,
Fort Worth. Investigators figured that like Okay, the spree that
he had spanned fifty days in twenty twenty five. He
hit Target and other retailers across fourteen different cities. At
(30:57):
a minimum that they knew about. He stole more than
two hundred lego sets, about a dozen coffee makers, several
vacuum cleaners, multiple PlayStation controllers. All this stuff added up
to about thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
So he goes on a fifty day jag where he's
just ripping off anything he can, just.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Carry anything he can carry. He's getting the shark, he's
getting the dice in. He's like, I want that that
Hamilton Beach toaster. You're coming with me?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Do people still sell food processors?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
So he I bet you grabbed a Kurig. That's probably
a coffee maker or a n Espresso anyway. So the
surveillance footage that they had for him was just like
him walking out the doors of these places, just arms
full of toys, like like Santa. Before he was sentenced,
he like he was looking at one point three million
(31:56):
in bonds across multiple jurisdictions. He got convicted on organized
retail theft with a deadly weapon because he was packing
a gun. It wasn't his winning smile and that you
know that thirty grand.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
The gun enhancements on top of this.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Well, during trial, prosecutors really stressed that this was about
more than just the dollar value of the stolen goods.
Love had a criminal history, and then there were all
his efforts to evade law enforcement. So the case wound
up having legal significance beyond just Love's crazy lego shoplifting spree.
His trial was the first under Texas's Organized Retail Theft Statute,
(32:37):
and so this applies to crimes committed on or after
September one, twenty twenty five. His trial became a test
case for the law. The revised statute increases penalties specifically
for repeat offenders and organized theft rings. I think this
is going after smashing grabs.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
So smashing grabs and also like mobs who organized slash
mob and they run in steal stuff from like you know,
a high.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
End store, and like Love fit the parameters for everything.
So he was sentenced to forty five years in prison.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
He's a one man's gay.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, he had to pay a ten thousand dollars fine
as well. Coverage of the case, like some of like
the local crime reporting is just very straightforward. Sure, but
there's all this wider commentary on like does the punishment
fit the crime, But there's you know, there's no denying
the scale of it. Two hundred lego sets there and
forty five years in prison kind of makes sense, really
(33:34):
not at.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
All, because like I'm like, I don't and I know Texas.
I've spent a lot of good amount of time in Texas,
and they're big on like punishment for justice, like in
terms of like we're going to make an example of
you so other people see that. You know, Texas don't
play with this well.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
And he also he had all like he had charges
all over the place, he had resisting, he had weapons,
he had drug charge and he's an exemplar of a
forty five years that is insane. Insane.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, I mean like it should be like forty five days.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, exactly. I really want to write a book. I
don't know, write a book Winston, that is brutal. Let's
take a break. There's a guy outside selling loose bags
of legos all numbered, out of the trunk of his car,
and I want to see if he has one of
those sunflower bouquets. We'll be right back, Zaren I've been
(34:41):
blabbering about lego crimes, and now I have a saga
for you. This one isn't about shoplifting or this is
an oral history or barcos. Come sit it my knee
and I will sing you the songs of our ancestors.
It's full of intrigue and a YouTuber who Now I
know how I am by how disconnected I am from YouTube?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
What do you mean?
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Like?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
I use it to look up old music videos and
then sometimes like a baking technique or home repair explanation,
and that's it. I'd rather read things.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yes, of course, but there's a lot of other stuff
you look at, news, documentaries, public performances, plays, no no
TV shows you barely remember.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
I can't even get my brain around YouTube personalities like
boxing what even is that? Or like watching someone else
play a video game.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Yeah, I'm not big on the streaming.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
The ones who act a fool in public.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I definitely yeah, I definitely don't because usually it's like
I'm too busy critiquing it in my head. I'm like, oh,
come on, man, you got to try, you know, Like
I like, this is not where you need to be there.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
But the kids, they love their YouTube and so too
so to the song. It all started in twenty twenty three,
an eighty three year old man named Ed Mansell was
in poor health. Time was catching up with him. I know,
the feeling brother. He and his son. I'm eighty three
in my mind three, I am eighty three of the mind.
(36:09):
He and his son had been building this incredible Star
Wars lego collection for decades, and as he was winding
down his affairs, he decided to sell it all on consignment.
Oh yeah, no, Soun's in on it. And Ed wanted
to get money to pay for his grandchild's college education,
so he took his collection to a Bricks and Minifigs
(36:31):
b a M franchise store. The stores, Yeah, in Kaiser, Oregon.
So it was owned at the time by Crystal Law
Gorman and her husband Benjamin Gorman. So it's a chain
and they had the franchise.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Oh, the Kaiser Gorman's.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yes, yes, the Kaiser Gormans. Ed's son, Brian Mansell said
the collection was made up of seven hundred and eighty
sets and one thousand, two hundred minifigures. It's a lot.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
That's a lot. It's a fair amount.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
It's a lot. Of teeny super guys.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah, that would hurt to step on. Kind.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
I hope they were like fifty percent. Ewok, I love
the eks. I love the ewoks and Babu Frick. Oh buddy. Okay,
so this collection was worth a pretty penny.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
I tell people that they're like, what's Elizabeth Like? I'm like,
she loves Babu Frick and ee, don't get her started
on ewoks.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
That is That's it. That's all there is to say
about me. Nothing else. That's my resume.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
BIV.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, iheart's like, can you see your bio? I'm like,
I love Ewoks and Babu send them a text me
get out of my face, Admiral. iHeart all right. So
the collection was worth around two hundred and seventy eight
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
But then something happened. In November of twenty twenty four,
Bricks and Minifigs Franchising BAMF issued a notice of immediate
termination against the Oregon store. So they said that Law
and Gorman defaulted on their accounts and that they were
transferring the franchise ownership to new operators Brandon Best and
(38:00):
Joshua Johnson. Okay, like, okay, fine, that's unfortunate. Brian Mansell
reached out and he was like, hey, like, if they're
going to be these new owners, I want to get
back the unsold consigned inventory from my dad's collection. And
that was part of the original consignment agreement that he
had like in writing and signed, Yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Can always go and get yourself.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
He could, he could reclaim unsold stock whenever he wanted to.
And the new operators are like, no, no, you can't.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah, what's the legal ground?
Speaker 2 (38:30):
They have all sorts of responses. Fast forward to May
twenty twenty six, Reckless Ben enters the picture.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Do I know him? See a friend of mine?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Forgotten YouTuber Ben Reckless Ben Schneider. He's a thirty year
old in La. He makes gonzo style videos. He has
like a very cross country runner look and energy to him. Okay,
and his videos are just not for me?
Speaker 3 (38:59):
How does he They're not for me?
Speaker 2 (39:00):
They're not made for me?
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Is he like do a man on the street interviews?
Speaker 5 (39:04):
No?
Speaker 2 (39:05):
No, everything is outsized and loud, okay. And the video
titles are like I overthrew a restaurant that was run
by a cult or. I hired two private investigators to
investigate each other.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
So he's like a Jake Paul Logan.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
And then as I'm looking at his videos and then
like have they have the suggestions on the right, they're
like five hundred versions of him of all these people
guys who just yeah, like overwhelmed. Yeah, And so I didn't.
I only watched what I had to watch.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
I go back to, like my professor gives a lecture
on the Ottoman. I'm just like.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Chris Cornell live version of Yeah. So I have to
tell you I logged out of YouTube before searching for
and watching the videos because I didn't want it to
wreck my algorithm. Give me like this Shenado Connor live
performances to suggest or you know, they're like I know
(39:59):
you like that, you know that one Madonna video.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
We'll let you see. We got another version of The
Grateful by John Mayer exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
But then I want these like little chodes popping up,
all right, So where was I algorithm? Someone who likely
already had his algorithm broken was Brian Mansell, because he
reached out to reckless Ben and asked for help. Okay,
so he wanted Ben to look into this whole mess,
and he wanted help getting the legos back.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
In some such reckless Ben, will you help me? My
only home?
Speaker 2 (40:32):
It was in the hologram, so Brian said. His dad,
the owner of the sets, hadn't been told about their
current existence in the liminal plane because he had a
health condition where he couldn't be upset. You know what, same,
edg Yeah, I definitely have it. So the initial video
(40:54):
is one hour and twenty five minutes long. It is
so loud and there are so many animations floating across
the screen while like some little dingus runs around with
a microphone.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
You watch the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Well, Ben either stands there or like sits in his
car talking to someone on speakerphone. Like he's constantly talking
on speakers.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Oh it's one of the car. I wasn't picturing that,
especially like in a gamer chair.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
No, no, no, he's like he has like a set
and sometimes he wears a pink tuxedo. What I'm telling you,
it makes no sense. And then I'm just like, I'm
not supposed to be doing this because it's a Sometimes
it's just a bare chest with the jacket. Sometimes it's
the full get up.
Speaker 5 (41:34):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah, So but he's always on speakerphone and he has
these little minions right huh. And I don't know if
you know this, but again I have the health condition
that means I can't be upset.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
It is.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I risked my life for this, Darren. The video has
six point two million views, by the way, damn, and
now I'm one of them. It feels so dirty. So
in pursue the story, Ben he went to the BAM
store that's holding the Lego sets. Yeah, and they told
him you got to go to corporate. And so Ben
(42:09):
goes to the corporate offices in Provo Utah thes and
minifigures and they're like, you know what, we can't help
you. You got to go to the store. They're just back
and forth, back and forth. So Ben went to the
store and it didn't go so well. Saren Saren closed
(42:31):
your eyes.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yes, I want you to picture it.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
You are a big Lego fan, like super fan. You
have tons of sets and a whole room in your
house dedicated to your passion. The thing is you only
build things from the architecture series. You just finished up
Trevy Fountain and you're on a mission to find a
specific news set new to you at least this one
has been discontinued. It's the Lincoln Memorial. You want to
(43:02):
get your hands on it. So that's why. On an
overcast Saturday, you're entering the bricks and Minifig store in
your town Kaiser Organ. You walk in and the bell
on the door chimes. At the counter is a woman
in a gray T shirt scrolling on her phone. She
glances up at you and says hi, then goes back
to her phone. You stop in front of her and
clear your throat. She looks up again. You ask her
(43:24):
if they have the Lincoln Memorial. She isn't exactly sure
what you're talking about, which you are used to a
lot of times people focus just on the franchise Legos,
the Star Wars and the Harry Potter and stuff. You
explain that you're beginning your search for the set here
close to home before you go online or travel to
other cities in order to source it. She points to
(43:44):
an area further down the counter that has all the
architecture sets and then goes back to scrolling on her phone.
You thank her, tipping your custom made Teddy Roosevelt campaign
hat at her. As you stroll down the counter, the
doorchime sounds, and you clock the new customer out of
the corner of your eye. It's a shaggy haired fellow
wearing thick rimmed glasses. You turn nonchalantly to glance at
(44:06):
the guy and notice that those are spyglasses. He's filming this.
You slyly tip the brim of your hat over the
side of your face, obscuring his view of you a
little bit. You scan the shelves and see just three
architecture sets. You already own all of them, but you
linger because something seems off about this interaction. Blooming at
(44:27):
the front of the store, the guy in the glasses
and his beanie wearing friend or holding sheets of paper.
They ask to get their lego sets back. The woman,
still scrolling your phone begins to dial a number while
telling the two young men to leave. They insist on
getting their sets back. At last, the clerk gets a
man on the phone, puts him on speaker, and hands
her phone to the men. The owner of the store,
(44:47):
you presume, he too, demands the men leave, coppering his
statements with grow in such a way that it seems stilted.
This goes on for some time. You continue to browse
quietly humming in classical tune in order to seem in
conspicuous but still able to listen. You see movement outside
of the store. It's the police. An officer directs the
(45:07):
men outside and begins to speak with them. They show
the officer the papers they're holding. The officer shakes his head.
You decide to leave the store. They don't have what
you want, and you'd like to hear the conversation with
the police outside, or at least what you can catch
as you walk by. The door chimes. As you leave,
you walk past the officer just as he is telling
the men that they are permanently banned from the store.
(45:30):
You walk to your car, then move your hat, settle
into the seat, and drive home. You are sure you
can get that Lincoln memorial online with better customer service
and far less drama. You like your Teddy Rose, You
know it, so Zarin. Watching this interaction in the video
(45:51):
made my chest tight.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Oh dude, I would be enraged, do you know? My
again would be hot.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
The cop and Ben have a conversation in which neither
understands the law or knows how to effectively express themselves.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
So Ben is the emotion at a motion.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
I've got the paper and it's my friend, and like,
we need our bricks back, we need our sets back.
Where are they? This is no, I'm sorry, like he
and you're permanently banned. He's like for permanent trespass. No,
you can't do it like that, dude. You don't just
get to declare it anyway. So the two of them
(46:28):
having this sort of like moron off, it's really hard
for me. And the whole time, I'm like, why didn't
the man cells just hire a lawyer totally, like that's
who you should have brought in. Don't go to reckless band.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
No, even the cheapest lawyer in town would be better
than I don't.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Know if they want to or couldn't afford to hire
a good lawyer.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
I think they're trying to create a tempest in a tea,
which seems to work if it's about so.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
After Reckless Ben they go with a name like that,
it has to end well, whatever it is, it's a tempest, okay.
So Ben became a thorn in bricks and Minifig's side
this was excellent content for him, I bet. So he
went to the house in American Fork, Utah of one
(47:17):
of the new store franchise owners Joshua.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Johnson camera's on.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
I'm sure and that that's crossing a line there, buddy,
to go to the new owner's home in another state
is so bam alleges that Ben and his team impersonated
delivery personnel like ups drivers in order to get entry
into the home.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
That's crossing.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
They impersonated members of religious congregations and officers of the court.
They put defamatory signs and banners in the neighborhood. One
across the street read I stole a dying man's life savings.
It was like right across from the guy's house.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
I do applaud that.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
And it's in the videos. Oh yeah, they have this
whole thing with it.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
That's the legal line. I'm on the side of it
is like, you can definitely let the neighbors know. Yeah,
he stole a dying man's legouse.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
All the hygienks got been arrested, okay twice.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
He currently faces misdemeanor charges of stalking, targeted residential picketing,
wait what apparently, disorderly conduct, criminal trespass. All that was
filed on March tenth, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
He said that police searched his vehicle, they arrested him,
jailed him for multiple days, and that an officer dislocated
his shoulder during one of the arrests. He said that,
like the cops told him, oh, someone gave us a
report that you have heroin in your car. Like anyway,
police body cam and dashcam footage was later released, but
portions were taken.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Out and got missing minutes.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
And then there's this whole thing online where people say
they have it and then they can't share it anyway.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Once they get lawyers involved, this is gonna get crazy.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
Well, a defense attorney, They got a defense attorney. They
raised concerns about the underlying search warrant, noting that it
cited an investigation into stalking, but described officers searching for
stolen lego sets as evidence. It's like that no so
Ben later claimed that a new no bail warrant had
(49:17):
been issued against him for unexplained reasons, and that he
had fled to Mexico fed Well, and usually when you
run to Mexico, you don't tell anyone about it totally.
But every single person involved in this is.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
That just like a nickname for California in Utah, he
fled to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
I it was Mexico at one time. Everyone involved in this,
every single person, has to put all of their thoughts
and actions on video for all to see.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Like everybody. The cops are doing.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Totally American fork police. They pushed back hard.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
On the claims of Mexico Facebook videos.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
They said there are no active warrants for him and
they're not seeking him. Yeah. The police chief issued it
to twenty six minute public statement. More video. They're like, look,
bodycam footage doesn't back up what Ben is saying about
the injuries. There were no complaints logged during his detention
or his booking. He's lying and then okay, enter the
(50:16):
civil cases. So there's BAM versus schneider mansell at all.
May thirtieth, twenty twenty six, BAM sued Ben the Man
cells others, reckless Ben LLC, you know, all his little
minions invoking Utah's reco statute.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
They accused them of running a quote coordinated multi platform
campaign involving false accusations, fabricated claims, deceptive practices, and manufactured
confrontations to extort money, racketeer, profiteer and damage BAM's business.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
They're protecting the brand.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, so BAM. Their filing also brings up the whole
thing about Ben's team, impersonating the delivery workers, the churchgoers,
all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
What are you going to do?
Speaker 2 (51:01):
He's so gonzo. Then there's the countersuit from the old
franchise owners, So Crystal Law Gorman, Benjamin Gorman, they filed
their own site and they said that BAM Franchising wrongly
seized their store without notice, that they forced them out
under threats to call the police, and they were never
compensated for all the confiscated.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
Them and Reckless Ben could get together and do it well.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Then they filed a motion June sixteenth, not too long ago,
to intervene in the Reckless Ben lawsuit, saying that they're
not defendants in that case and that they're pursuing a
separate dispute with BAM. And that really gummed up the works.
So BAM Franchising went ahead issued a takedown notice against
Ben's Patreon page. Yeah, his videos go up there before
(51:47):
they go to YouTube. You know what this calls for
is a video zeron Patreon. CEO Jack Kanti publicly told
the company to quote stuff it and sue Patreon directly. Instead,
He's like, we're not taking his stuff down. Try try me.
Speaker 3 (52:04):
That's a good Which side of the bread your butter
is exactly?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Exactly? And so Bam is also accused of trying to
seize the go fundme that was set up to raise
money for the man Cell family, though they deny it.
Speaker 3 (52:18):
The go fund me better who denies.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Yeah, BAM's like, we're not trying to take the gofund
go fund me. He's raised more than five hundred thousand dollars.
Good Ben says that BAM's lawsuit, Uh, the framing of
it is like harassment, totally unfair. They say stuff that
like he made bomb threads or he threatened to kill
franchise owners and he just wanted a chance to tell
(52:43):
his side of the story. He said, Okay. He says
being served with a suit has like effectively gagged him. Yeah,
needs to make videos and post them for the world
to see, or he will die. That's his medical condition.
So he he said he finished a third installment of
his video series, but he can't post it because doing
so would send him quote immediately to.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Jail and break injunction. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
Cost him both his own countersuit and the GoFundMe funds,
and he's made sure to post a handful of related
shorty videos. There's like a workaround video where he calls
Bam quote this mystery company that I'm no longer allowed
to talk about, Honey, it doesn't work that way. So
Bam is like shooting down every claim that Ben makes.
(53:29):
They say that whole collection was worth sixty to eighty
thousand dollars, and they're like, ps, when we took over
the store, the whole place was only had two thousand
and five thousand dollars worth of sets in there, so
they didn't even have like the man Cell stuff wasn't
even in there. So Bam also says that the original
consignment with ed Mansell should never have been approved because
(53:54):
they weren't authorized to do that as a franchise. But
they're like, you know what, We'll still we can negotiate
a real solution with the man Cell family.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
So shady they I want to judge who actually understands
us to come in and gives like smackdowns and real justice. Yes,
set some precedent for this stuff.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Bam says that the Gormans sold the inventory off before
they seized the store, and that it's now that that
store is closed permanently now. Yeah, and then other stores
around the region have faced harassment and threats, like the
fans get off, fired up, and it got weird. Of course,
conspiracy theories started.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
The involved like the Denver Airport.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Ben's videos leaned into it with like accusations of a
Mormon mafia that was covering up the Lego scandals. I
wonder because like most of the BAM corporate employees remember
of the Mormon church apparently I figured, and so that
that made the whole thing super viral and like pretty offensive.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Bet.
Speaker 2 (54:52):
And then you know, like the city the city council
meetings are just jam packed in American fork, jam packed
with people who are like free Bend. All of a sudden,
they go from no one showing up to its packed house.
It's unresolved right now and fast moving. So you know
that the one case has been stalled out because the
(55:13):
Gormans intervened, and then you know the Kaiser police are
still reviewing all these things. There's the Utah misdemeanor charges.
Ben's part three video is still unreleased.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
I'm waiting breath is Saron.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (55:30):
Ah, Man, I'm really pulling for the man Cell family
on that, Like, you know, I feel bad that they
got drug into this, And there's just a bunch of
like weird, like it sounds like greedy, exploitative, and like
you know, spotlight hogging. People jump in the way and
you lose sight of what this is really about, which
is this guy who's trying to look out for his grandchild. Yeah, yeah,
(55:53):
you know, we've lost sight of all of that. So
I find that often this is the case when you
and this is not like a slighted YouTube influencers, but
when people it's their job to get attention, they steal
the attention from the thing they're trying to bring attention
to when they're trying to be on a crusade about
yeah blah blah blah. So I'm not trying to be
(56:13):
critical of our modern moment of media, but I do
wish that people, as you often point out to me,
and I point out to myself, I'm all about fundamentals,
which is like, can we keep it about what this
was about and figure out how to get a remedy
for that, and then we can get back to all
this like nonsense. You guys can all shout at each
other and do like your like you know, daytime TV
(56:34):
reality show energy or whatever it is you guys are
all about of Like, yeah, I get excited yell and
screaming I'm taking his sign team that or whatever, because
like I know that people seem to want that, but like,
can we do that? Second can be the other thing.
So what's yours, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2 (56:50):
I think it's interesting that lego crimes have spiked recently,
and like the robbing bricks is in the zeitgeist.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Oh completely yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
I mean my favorite band, Chip the Crow just released
a song about Lego theft. Really the Crow, do you
want to hear a little bit of it.
Speaker 4 (57:22):
I'm gonna ask you your leg I'm gonna say, Cole,
I'm gone.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
It's so good.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
I love Chip Chip the Crow, aren't.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
They They're like they're the best, and it's like this.
I think that's gonna be part of the new album.
I'm hoping, you know, after that though, I need to
talk back.
Speaker 3 (58:01):
Oh my god, I let you.
Speaker 5 (58:11):
So. I had to rent a car recently and they
were like all right, you know, going over all the
paperwork that nobody reads and like, sign, here's how much
the rate is, and sign here here's our damage waiver.
Sign Here this is saying that you're gonna fill it
up with gas. Sign here this is the saying that
you're not gonna use the car to rob a bank.
And I was like what, because you know, the only
reason they have that clause is because someone indeed use
(58:34):
the car from that rental car location to rob a bank.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Not as ridiculous, They're like, quick, put a clause in
the contract. Do you think if I'm gonna go rob
a bank, do you think I care that it's breach
of contract?
Speaker 3 (58:47):
Exactly? Like this indemnifies us under this county's laws.
Speaker 2 (58:51):
Like, oh my goodness, that's great. That's it for today.
You can find us online at ridiculous crime dot com.
We're also at ready culous Crime on both blue Sky
and Instagram. You can email us at ridiculous Crime at
gmail dot com. Most importantly, leave a talkback on the
iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth
(59:14):
Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by famous YouTube
shock jock Dave Coustin. Our ridiculous assistant is Lego Broker
to the Stars Terry Maldonado. Fong research is by figuring
appraiser Marissa Brown. The theme song is by Lego Shrek
set collector Thomas Lee and Lego Paw Patrol collector Travis Dutton.
Additional tunes provided by Chip Chip. The crow host wardrobe
(59:37):
is provided by Botany five hundred producer Dave Coustin's wardrobe
by Mister Guy of Beverly Hills, guest heron makeup by
Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are Barcode specialist Ben
Bollen and Post Defense Noel Brown.
Speaker 4 (59:56):
Eligoa l E GUO l e G don't tell l
echo my leg goes, don't tell studio my legs, don't
tell le chudio my l A l e gudo l
(01:00:19):
e G.
Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Don't talk l.
Speaker 4 (01:00:23):
Leogos l e guo l e.
Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Don't talk my.
Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
L e guo l e l e g l e go.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio four more
podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hi, Sarah, Elizabeth, what's up?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Not much? How you've been I'm pretty good?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Been good. I've been good.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I've been good.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yeah, I yes. How about you? You good?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm yes.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I think we're all good.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah, solidly good. I love your h What is that
Giraft print?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Draft prints. Yeah, that was a cool graft onesie.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'd be so overheated in a onesie.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Rh uh. You know it's ridiculous, I do. And I'm
so glad you asked, because I've been just buckling over
here waiting to tell you. Because it's like, Sarah, did
you dream this? I'm like, no, I didn't. I checked.
They didn't dream this. This is actually real. Imagine you're
on a plane, right and you're in first class and
you look over in first class with you are Charlie
Sheen and Nicholas Cage.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Oh nothing, seated.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Together, traveling together? Thank you all? Amused?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Right?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Well. Charlie Sheen recently told the story, and I forgot
because I left out my favorite part of the story.
Charlie Sheen was carrying two ounces of cocaine on him.
He was muling drugs with Nicholas Cage.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Course he was.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
No, of course he was. The way he tells the
story quote, they still had that curtain separating first class,
so we'd pull the curtain back with the mic and
say something really goofy and get a couple laughs. And
then the mic winds up in Cage's grip and he
saw the tone that we had set, but he chose
to take it where he did. He impersonated the captain
that he's not feeling well and he's losing control of
(01:27):
the airplane. It was like right out of the movies,
like you hear people start screaming, like there's always that
high pitched female scream in the movies. That happened right.
So we were in a panic, and he didn't know
the amount of cocaine I had on me, two ounces
in a fat ziplock taped to the inside of my
inner thigh. So the steward walks right up to him
and points him right in the face and says, not cool, mister,
(01:49):
not cool. And that was about ten minutes before landing,
so we kind of knew we might have company, but
I still had a measure of good will with the
passengers because nobody knew at that point, I was a
drug so we were detained. Now it could get a
lot worse. But it was that thing again where a
couple of guys were Cage fans, a couple of guys
were chine fans. We could feel it start to turn
(02:11):
in our favor. Sorry, and that's when the first wave
of relief hits. This is not going to be a
life changing evening. So what right? I mean the idea
that he's muling cocaine and he's like, you know who
I should bring with me while I mule cocaine, Nicholas Cage,
and then Nicolas Cage does what Nicolas Cage does, and
(02:31):
Trojans like, oh man, and then these two charmed. The
way out of things like that is just.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Row up and row up, be a grown man.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
This is why crime is not fair. It's because some
people just skate by on things like hey, I'm Charlie Sheen.
Other people are like, I did the smallest thing and
I lost.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
My whole life for exactly exactly ridiculous. That is ridiculous.
Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Messing
with the house of brick, This is ridiculous. Crime. A
(03:20):
podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis and cons it's
always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Are you damn right?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I got a request for an episode from a long
time day one.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Rude dude Nice.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
He had something that he wanted to hear us talk about.
And he's someone maybe the only person on this planet
that I will do whatever he asks. Really, yeah, that
rude dude is my nephew.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I was wondering, who do you hook me on that
last one? I was like, who could this guy?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
He is newly seven years old, no longer obsessed with Batman.
His new love Legos. Oh yeah, all about I can
see Legos. So I got him two sets for his birthday.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Nice, and his only.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Request is that they be for eighteen and over and
have like thousands of pieces.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
He's so smart.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Eighteen like adult Legos.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
I want the hardest ones you can Legos after Dark.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, he just like, I don't want this children's stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I didn't know that they did age categorizations by difficulty.
Now he has the DeLorean from Back to the Future
that he made articulated parts. It's huge. When I was
a kid, Legos just like came in bins or whatever,
and they were like all sorts of random colors and
shapes and sizes and like you get what I'm talking
(04:44):
about totally or.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Also in the collection would be like you could do
like say, one of five different things, and like the
castle was the hardest, the barn is the easiest or whatever.
Castle and barn.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
But you know, now, those buckets of bricks are hard
to come by. They're all about sets now, and like
you and I have adult friends who love Lego sets.
Oh yeah, they buy the absolutely enormous ones to build.
It's like a whole world out there, and I didn't
really know about.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It, Oh my god. And all the minifigure they call
it minifigs, minifigs. It's all about those two because like
there's rare ones, there's combinations, there's like I got to
get this one hat or whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Right right, all the accessories. I've learned a lot about
Legos lately, and when I learn about things, I always
want to know how they can also be crimes? Do
is this crime? Is this crime adjacent? Is this thing
ever valuable? Can it be stolen or become like a
fraud bearing item?
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, So the answer Zaren is yes. And today I'm
going to tell you about Lego crime. But first let's
learn a little about Lego, shall.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
We Lego itself?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Lego itself. It was August tenth, nineteen thirty two Billund Denmark,
a carpenter named Ole Kirk christians started a business making toys,
and in nineteen thirty four he renamed the company Lego.
And this comes from the Danish phrase of leg gout,
(06:11):
meaning play well ok. And the name also happens to
mean I put together or I assemble in Latin.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, it's a beautiful synchronicity.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
So Lego stayed Wooden into the nineteen forties, I remember this, Yeah,
But after World War Two it was all about plastics, baby.
So Christiansen he started experimenting with these like plastic injection
molding technologies.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Because before then is basically like Lincoln logs, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah. And so in nineteen forty nine Lego introduced these
really rudimentary interlocking plastic bricks. And it was Ole Kirk's son,
Godfred Kirk Christiansen who changed the game. So he took
the helmet Lego the same year that his dad passed
away nineteen fifty eight, Lego rolled out. It's now I
(07:00):
bricks system. I don't think those two events were related,
the death and the rollout. So they got that like
stud and tube coupling design. They call it patented, and
that's the design you see in the bricks today. And
Godfred's time in charge saw this period of like absolutely
crazy growth for Lego in the sixties and the seventies,
(07:23):
Lego went from just like this Danish toy maker to
an internationally recognized mega brand.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I was wondering when they went international sixties.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
And sixties and seventies, and while the design didn't change,
they just kept innovating and evolving. So in nineteen sixty
nine they made Lego duplo blocks okay yeah, yeah, easy
little hands, not a choking hazard, and they I don't
think there is this painful to step on.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Probably not, probably not.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
In nineteen seventy eight they launched Lego Minifigures anifigs, and
those are those small posable figures with interchangeable snap on hair, the.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Whole thing, the whole tame half the.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Head, yeah, legs come off. Yeah. So Godfred's son killed
Kirk Christensen, thank you, It's probably wrong. He became CEO
in nineteen seventy nine, and he continued the expansion. He
like went super worldwide.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Their generation goes up.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, he started building Lego Land theme parks.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Oh wow, he's the one.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
He's the one. So by the late nineties early two thousands, though,
Lego was having serious money trouble. Why they expanded way
beyond bricks, like the theme parks, video games, clothing, that
sort of thing, okay, and they kind of neglected the
bricks and so kids they're being sold video games and
they forgot about Legos, right, kind of the way they
(08:46):
forgot about Dre.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Never forget about Dre.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
So by two thousand and three, two thousand and four,
Lego was on the brink of bankruptcy. Really yeah, boo,
we don't like that. This led to a may you're restructuring.
So Jorgan Big Nudstorp, h that's not an Ikea product.
That's a guy who was a former McKenzie consultant. He
(09:10):
got named CEO and he was the first person outside
of the Kirk Christensen family to lead the company. Right,
So Nudstorp's turnaround strategy was like super precise. He divested
the non core businesses so he sold the Lego Land
parks to Merlin Entertainments.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Interesting, but they.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, they stayed Lego Land and the Christiansen's family holding
company kept a steak okay, franchised it out. Yeah, and
then he put the focus back on the core brick product.
I love it, you know, you love fundamentals. So doing
that involved rebuilding the company's entire licensing strategy. So they
set up partnerships with Star Wars back in nineteen ninety nine,
(09:55):
and then they just doubled down on it. They locked
in Harry Potter, Marvel, Mario Brothers, a bunch of other
major franchises. Yes, okay, and that's the Lego.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
We know today that all the kids know.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah. So the whole comeback was legendary. No other toy
company had come back from the.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Brink like that. Really.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, Galube was looking up at Lego from the bottom
of a cliff like whispering for them, like, just go on,
make toys proud. That's a deep cut. Yeah. So Lego
went from the brink of bankruptcy to being the world's
largest toy maker by revenue.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
So this is what this is, like what Erector set
never figured out how to correct.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Correct. Ownership of the company is still in family hands.
That family leadership recently passed to a fourth generation, and
that's Thomas Kirk Christiansen. He took over his chair of
the board of directors from his dad. The Kirk Christiansen family.
As of twenty twenty two, it was the wealthiest family
in Denmark net worth of about thirty two point eight
(11:00):
billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, it's been good to them. Yeah, and the company
is still doing bang up business. So they had twenty
twenty four revenue of seventy four point three billion Danish kroner,
which is like eleven point four billion American dollars. They
had an operating income of about almost three billion US
dollars net income of two point one two billion American dollars.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Not bad.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
The world's largest toy company by sales. So those sets
aren't cheap, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
No, I've been shopping for nieces and nephews one hundreds of.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Dollars of some of them. The Death Star from Star
Wars has almost ten thousand pieces and it costs a grand. Yeah.
Then there's there's a segrata familia one. They've got the
gouty cathedral that just completed almost one hundred and fifty
years of construction.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
So did Lego have to wait for the last piece,
the last piece that they release it? Now we can
sell it.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
It's twelve thousand pieces and it sets you back eight
hundred dollars and it takes one hundred and forty four
years to complete. Just like the cathedral, it has like
stained glass really inside. Yeah, So with those high dollar values.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Comes crime naturally.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
All of the Lego crimes I have for you today
are relatively recent, and I'm sure there are historical ones,
but I think that right now is the ripest time for.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
These, yeah, because the value has gone.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So yeah, we're at a stage where the sets are
expensive and there's a collector's market, and so it's gone
from kids toy, although the classic sets have always had
ages four to ninety nine on the age range, and
then to like an all ages craft system, to like
collectors fetish, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
And also, by the way, once you turn a hundred,
you can no longer play with Legos legally.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Sorry you're restricted.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Did you not see the box y?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm sorry you're gonna have to.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
It's a choking hazard. Put it down.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
And stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
It's a choke.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
So you know, people like they get the boxes now,
those types of things, they never opened the box, like
those kind of oh wow, right into it.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I didn't like that. When I was a kid, I'd
have friends like that. They would buy like two of
the same toy, they play with one, they put one
in the box or keep it in the box, and
I'd always be like, I'm a terrible person. I always
be so tempted to like spill something on like.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Oh yeah, I just don't get it, like you never did.
That's that fetishization. The toy is a toy, do what
you need, but it's like preserved for eternity.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
But then again, I'm also not rich, so I think
there's a These are a one to one relationship, and
those friends often hard hail. Well, well interesting, so put
that did you do that math for yourself?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Exactly? Well, Like, here's the other thing about Lego sets.
They're small, light, universally recognized, carry no serial numbers, so
they're untraceable. Oh yeah, and so the Lego atmosphere that
we're living to move distributing siren called totally like come hither.
So let's start with one that I find particularly hilarious.
(13:56):
We've got Jirell Augustine. He's a twenty eight year old
guy from Amount, California, and that's the city in La
County between Bellflower and Compton. So this went down in
like late twenty twenty five, early twenty twenty six. Oh
real reason, Yeah, dateline, Irvine, California. So the Irvine Police Department,
they are tipped off that someone had purchased and then
(14:17):
returned two Lego sets together worth three hundred and fifty
bucks from the target in Irvine. And like, buying something
and returning it isn't a crime, but swapping the contents
with something else's and what's that something else? Well, Augustine
allegedly put dried pasta into Star Wars and Marvel lego boxes.
(14:39):
Well yeah, well I'll tell you so it would like
mimic that rattle and the approximate way of the bricks
shifting around. He'd reseal the boxes, return them to Target
stores for cash refunds. Sure, I investigated the greeny photos
put out by the police department, and it looks like
he was using Goya brand Elbow macaroni.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Oh you really did the research.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
The research it was in like plastic bags. Because the bricks.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Are individual may need a lot of different sound.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Effects, and he hit them all. So the targets were
deliberately chosen for their resale value. There's this Irvine PD
public information officer Ziggy as our Cone. He told CBS
News that the Star Wars and Marvel sets carry a
really high value on the secondary collector's market, and they
figured that like the bricks themselves were then sold off separately,
(15:29):
so it wasn't just that he's returning them to get
the cash back. There are all these online resale channels
for collectible legosh like basically a flea market.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
My sister sells many figs that are like custom and
she'll buy like whole lots and then pick out the
ones that are valuable and then sell those as like
I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
There's a market. And then there was another incident in
Orange County. A Target staffer opened a return box expecting
lego bricks, found the dry pasta. So it wasn't just
a one store, one state operation. Irvine police say Augustine
ran the playbook about seventy times at Target stores in California, Tennessee, Texas,
(16:12):
New Jersey, Florida. He pulled in about thirty four thousand
dollars from this scam.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
That's not I thought you were going to say, like Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
He went up and down forty. Yeah, they found unboxed
Lego bricks absolutely stockpiled inside his house when they raided
it April fifteenth, twenty twenty six. And then after he
was arrested, he gets booked in on grand theft charges. Yeah,
this wasn't an anomaly. Cops were seeing more and more
(16:42):
Lego theft a crime wave, and there were big jobs.
Augustine was small spaghetti compared to some of these, according
to money Wise quote. Just a week before Augustine's arrest,
on April eighth, Kern County deputies recovered roughly one million
dollars worth of stolen Lego sets after spotting two Amazon
(17:02):
branded box trucks fleeing a scene in Mojave. Investigators later
located two abandoned freight trailers that had been stolen while
transporting goods from Fort Worth, Texas to Morino Valley, California.
Three Southern California men were booked on cargo theft, possession
of stolen vehicle, and conspiracy. Charges a million dollars in legos.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
That's nuts.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I don't think ole Kirk Christensen could have imagined all. No,
let's take a break when we come back. More Lego crime.
(17:51):
Zaren So, we've had shoplifting and truck chases, but that's
not all. Six months before the Amazon truck heist, Santa Rosa,
California police served a warrant at a house. Inside was
a Lego movie version of a CSI crime scene. Okay, so,
as money Wise again puts it, quote tens of thousands
(18:14):
of loose pieces scattered across desks, hundreds of minifigures beheaded
and sorted by facial expression, an open set stacked along
the hallway walls. Wow, I just like the beheaded figures.
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
I mentioned earlier that my sister, her youngest child, got
into legos and then she would have to in to
buy them on like Amazon or whatever eBay, and she
realized how valuable they were because just trying to get
him their exact right one, She's like, forget buying these,
I'm gonna start selling them. And she makes bank doing this,
and he's like her expert. He's like telling you her,
like you need to get this one and you know
these are the best ones. And then so she figures
(18:52):
out the market from him and his friends and like
it's a brilliant, Like I wish I had a head
for this kind of business, or like the patients to sort.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
All the heads and by facial expression.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
But that's the thing is, like you get down to
that where it's like I just am not gonna sit
there with a magnifying glass on like an extendo arm
and I'm checking all the faces. I'm like, I can't
do it, no matter how much you can give me
a million dollars. I'm like, I'm passing.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Has made me sort through a bin of minifigures looking
for specific hair color hair yes, and I'm just like,
we'll just pretend it's this color.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
That's where you and I a line where like purple
as black, as gray, whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It's what you wanted to be. Have some have some imagination.
So the stuff in this house in Santa Rosa valued
at like six grand.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
This like serial killer house.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Cerial color heads everywhere. It was basically lego fencing, and
the ring leader got charged with organized retail theft. And
there's another one before that, Sarah before they hit Charlotte,
North Carolina. Okay, And it wasn't a career kerminel He
was a former Wells Fargo banker, which maybe that means
he was zing anyway, So the guy fenced more than
(20:01):
one hundred thousand dollars in stolen legos that were gained
from local Target and Walmart stores, and he was moving
the bricks through an eBay account called Brick by Brick
b r Ik by brik gotcha. So if you bought
any legos from him, you're sitting on hot bricks. In
two thousand and five, a guy in Reno, Nevada named
(20:23):
William Swanberg stole about two hundred thousand dollars in lego
sets from Target stores across five western states.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
He's a two thousand and five yes, so they did
not be worth like a million dollars, yes, probably. How
did he do it, Zon Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
He switched the barcodes on the boxes.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
How do you switch the He got.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Pinched, Yeah, he got pinched when he was stopped by
a Target security guard at a Portland area store. Okay,
And he just bought ten boxes of the Star Wars
Millennium Falcon set. And at first I thought they were
talking about the giant one that goes for eight hundred
and fifty dollars on the Lego website. Sure now, and
that set. Those sets get rave reviews on the Lego website.
(21:05):
There are some bad ones. Let me read you a
little from my favorite. I got kind of down a
rabbit hole looking at bad Lego reviews. This is just excerpts,
but the title of the review is I got a
bad feeling about this. It's clever. On face value, it's
absolutely beautiful to look at, and I am cringing on
(21:26):
the inside because the spelling is so bad.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Anyway, You've got to learn to get over that online
stuff on face as long as you like, yes, actually
can use a K. Why not?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
On face value, it's absolutely beautiful to look at. The
level of exterior detail is incredible, and building was both
challenging and fun. However, I do have some issues with
the set. Firstly, minifigures. I like that they chose to
include characters from the old and the new. However, every
photo I have sent this to be it friends or family.
(21:59):
The first question is where is R two or obi wan?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Wait a minute, By the way, none of those words
sounded like words that were difficult to spell.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Wow, Okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah. So the review goes on much longer than that,
but I love that this builder sent a photo of
it to important people in their life, and the folks
where's our two? Or like no, no, obi wan, what's up?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Where's not?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Like Wow, that's an impressive build, or like where are
you going to store that? They're just like disappointed that
the whole gang isn't there. You know, don't take it
out on Lego that you have lousy friends and family. Yeah,
where's chewy chewy? Okay? So back to Swanburg, the guy
with the bar codes, he actually took the smart Play
(22:50):
Millennium Falcon. That one goes for about one hundred bucks.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
The smart Play Apparently.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Smartplay has some sort of smart bricks. I looked up
that that product of the Lego website, and it's Smartplay compatible.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
I don't know it's Smartplay.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I think it's like some automated brick thing are like mechanical.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Okay, so mais.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
People were mad it was it's listed as smart Play,
but it doesn't come with the smart Play brick. I
am I noped out. I was like all right, you're mad. Okay,
that's one hundred dollars down the drains. So Swanberg he
got stopped by security at Target and they called the cops,
according to NBC News quote, in his parked car, detectives
(23:31):
found fifty six of the Star Wars sets he valued
at ninety nine dollars each, as well as twenty seven
other Lego sets in a laptop found inside Swanberg's car.
Investigators also found the addresses of numerous Target stores in
the Portland area, theirre locations carefully plotted on a mapping
software like I love the logistics, hate the petty crime.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
You know, you go, I'm like, why not have a
paper map? You can just circle them? But that's me.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
All those sets, Like the car is just like jam
packed with Lego box Totally.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
You're a hoarder now in your.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Car, right and a laptop. So Swanberg, he is accused
of switching the bar codes. He would take the barcode
from a cheaper set and stick it over the sticker
on an expensive set.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
And there's this Lego collector's website called bricklink dot com,
and records there show that Swanberg sold nearly six hundred
thousand dollars worth of legos between two thousand and two
and when he was caught in two thousand and five.
That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yeah, especially since now it's worth three.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Million dollars five billion. Another person who pulled that scam
was a Silicon Valley executive. What yeah, like people just
can't help themselves. Thomas Loangenbach, forty seven years old, vice
president at SAP Labs in Palo Alto SAP Labs Integration
and Certification Center. He was also switching barcodes. So Liz
(25:01):
Wiley of the Mountain View Police Department said, quote, this
probably happens more often than you'd think, but this is
the first time we've ever had a case like this.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I'm kind of betting. I mean, these guys seem to be,
in my opinions, a little arrogant about the target employees.
Oh yeah, I think that they would see what comes
up when they ring it, and if it's like clearly
not indicating what you're looking at, that that would be
a flag. Because these people do know that there's theft
at targets, So it doesn't matter that you look like
a tech bro. If it says like you know whatever.
(25:30):
I can't think of fast enough of different Star Wars
stuff that it could be versus like some cheap set
that it would be. But like you think they would
be like that doesn't match. I see this stuff go by,
you know, all day long.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah, well, so here's Langenbach. He's living in a multimillion
dollar house in San Carlos, California. Wow, swapping out barcoes
to cheat Target out of legos. Yes, and like. According
to NBC Bar Area Quote Supervising Deputy District Attorney Cindy
Seeley Hendrickson said Monday that internal Target security spotted something
(26:05):
awry with Longdenbock's purchases from their stores. That's three alleged
burglaries from the Mountainview store on Showers Drive and one
from the Cooper Tino store on Steven's Creek Boulevard over
the last month or so. Wiley of Mountainview Police said
Target security had captured Longenboc performing the quote ticket switch
on camera and had been onto him. Because the company
(26:26):
pays very close attention to legos, you would think, I mean,
they locked that stuff up now just because of these
kind of guys.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And also, wouldn't you like if you were him and
you're in the you know, Silicon Valley area, Like why
wouldn't you just like you buy the cheaper bricks, you
buy the more expensive bricks. You go and you know,
switch the stickers in your like garage, and then you
go get like some you know, numskull twenty year old
who's like an intern, and you go, I'm gonna I'm
gonna take you on the corporate ladder, but I'm gonna
(26:53):
need to try you out. So first it need you
to handle like you know, and you give them like
your dry cleaning, and then the legos and you go
go Target and return these and everything you give them
is a fake name and a fake address. You meet
him like a library parking lot.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
He gets okay, So for that incident, right, he gets
charged with four counts of burglary for seven boxes. Yeah,
seven box worth one thousand dollars. Oh my huge, he's
only making it doesn't seem like a lot. But Sarah
and I want.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
You to just write by scale.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Let's go back to NBC B Area quote. When police
searched his house, Hendrickson said they found hundreds and hundreds
of Lego boxes inside. They also discovered that since last April,
he had allegedly sold twenty one hundred Lego items totally
about thirty thousand dollars on eBay. Using the handle Tom's
Brickyard inside his car, Hendrickson said, we're thirty two pre
(27:45):
made barcode stickers, so at least he's bringing them, not
like trying to do it in the store, but he
like picks it up and is trying to fly.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
That should be smart approach.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It with those barcode stickers. He would buy a two
hundred and seventy nine dollars box of Millennium fire and
Legos for just forty nine dollars, and then he also
did like the ninety dollars Anakin Lego set for thirty five,
so he was targeting Star Wars.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Yeah, he's basically just scraping value like a mid level mobster.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yes, yes, Now, the other fellas I've told you about
all seemed to do this theft as their main source
of income. But not this guy. No, he just loved
the challenge.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
It's a game for him.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Another Lego maniac who couldn't help himself was Winston Love.
Do you remember that commercial Zach Zach? He has a legomaniac.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Wasn't somebody famous one of the people. Probably I was
thinking like Jack Black or something like that.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
You know what, that kid was going to go far.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
He's a lego.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Maybe Ryan Goslin. I don't know, somebody I feel.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Like something like that. Oh yeah, Winston Love, that's a
great name. He's just another twenty eight year old who
doesn't know any better. It's all started Halloween twenty twenty
five and a Target employee in Wataga, Texas called the police.
A guy who turned out to be Winston Love grab
(29:01):
more than twelve hundred dollars in Lego sets and then
made a run for it out of the store, and
the cops tracked. Yeah, he was just like macOS, watch this,
try and catch me.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Car.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
The cops tracked him to where he lives. No, yeah, anyway,
They get to his house.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
No name, Texas town. I'm sure everyone in the parking
lot I could tell you who it was.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
They get to the house. He refuses to come out.
That's that's bad business right there. But the officers they
talked to him, they like coax him out. They're like,
you can come out and surrender peacefully.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
So he does, cousin Winston, you need to come out.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Then they go inside his house and they find five
thousand dollars in cash, narcotics, weapons, So narcotics aren't part
of the wholesome lego lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Not typically it's like let's do a bunch of meth
and put together legos.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Well maybe it's taken apart. They take them. But what
started as a single target theft quickly revealed a much
larger pattern. So, according to Wataga Police Chief Jim Lewis,
when Winston got arrested, police were aware of twenty three
local incidents just prior, like within the last two months.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I take it back. Apparently he was able to and
then like eighty.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Other incidents is tracked to him, like since they started,
like they had initially.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Found the other on top of the three.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah, twenty three just in the last two months, but
they had been following him for a little bit longer.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, I take it all back.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
When he got arrested, he had eight outstanding felony warrants
for similar thefts all across North Texas, Okay, Dallas, Plano, Frisco,
Fort Worth. Investigators figured that like Okay, the spree that
he had spanned fifty days in twenty twenty five. He
hit Target and other retailers across fourteen different cities. At
(30:57):
a minimum that they knew about. He stole more than
two hundred lego sets, about a dozen coffee makers, several
vacuum cleaners, multiple PlayStation controllers. All this stuff added up
to about thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
So he goes on a fifty day jag where he's
just ripping off anything he can, just.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Carry anything he can carry. He's getting the shark, he's
getting the dice in. He's like, I want that that
Hamilton Beach toaster. You're coming with me?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Do people still sell food processors?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
So he I bet you grabbed a Kurig. That's probably
a coffee maker or a n Espresso anyway. So the
surveillance footage that they had for him was just like
him walking out the doors of these places, just arms
full of toys, like like Santa. Before he was sentenced,
he like he was looking at one point three million
(31:56):
in bonds across multiple jurisdictions. He got convicted on organized
retail theft with a deadly weapon because he was packing
a gun. It wasn't his winning smile and that you
know that thirty grand.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
The gun enhancements on top of this.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Well, during trial, prosecutors really stressed that this was about
more than just the dollar value of the stolen goods.
Love had a criminal history, and then there were all
his efforts to evade law enforcement. So the case wound
up having legal significance beyond just Love's crazy lego shoplifting spree.
His trial was the first under Texas's Organized Retail Theft Statute,
(32:37):
and so this applies to crimes committed on or after
September one, twenty twenty five. His trial became a test
case for the law. The revised statute increases penalties specifically
for repeat offenders and organized theft rings. I think this
is going after smashing grabs.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
So smashing grabs and also like mobs who organized slash
mob and they run in steal stuff from like you know,
a high.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
End store, and like Love fit the parameters for everything.
So he was sentenced to forty five years in prison.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
He's a one man's gay.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, he had to pay a ten thousand dollars fine
as well. Coverage of the case, like some of like
the local crime reporting is just very straightforward. Sure, but
there's all this wider commentary on like does the punishment
fit the crime, But there's you know, there's no denying
the scale of it. Two hundred lego sets there and
forty five years in prison kind of makes sense, really
(33:34):
not at.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
All, because like I'm like, I don't and I know Texas.
I've spent a lot of good amount of time in Texas,
and they're big on like punishment for justice, like in
terms of like we're going to make an example of
you so other people see that. You know, Texas don't
play with this well.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
And he also he had all like he had charges
all over the place, he had resisting, he had weapons,
he had drug charge and he's an exemplar of a
forty five years that is insane. Insane.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, I mean like it should be like forty five days.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, exactly. I really want to write a book. I
don't know, write a book Winston, that is brutal. Let's
take a break. There's a guy outside selling loose bags
of legos all numbered, out of the trunk of his car,
and I want to see if he has one of
those sunflower bouquets. We'll be right back, Zaren I've been
(34:41):
blabbering about lego crimes, and now I have a saga
for you. This one isn't about shoplifting or this is
an oral history or barcos. Come sit it my knee
and I will sing you the songs of our ancestors.
It's full of intrigue and a YouTuber who Now I
know how I am by how disconnected I am from YouTube?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
What do you mean?
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Like?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
I use it to look up old music videos and
then sometimes like a baking technique or home repair explanation,
and that's it. I'd rather read things.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yes, of course, but there's a lot of other stuff
you look at, news, documentaries, public performances, plays, no no
TV shows you barely remember.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
I can't even get my brain around YouTube personalities like
boxing what even is that? Or like watching someone else
play a video game.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Yeah, I'm not big on the streaming.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
The ones who act a fool in public.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I definitely yeah, I definitely don't because usually it's like
I'm too busy critiquing it in my head. I'm like, oh,
come on, man, you got to try, you know, Like
I like, this is not where you need to be there.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
But the kids, they love their YouTube and so too
so to the song. It all started in twenty twenty three,
an eighty three year old man named Ed Mansell was
in poor health. Time was catching up with him. I know,
the feeling brother. He and his son. I'm eighty three
in my mind three, I am eighty three of the mind.
(36:09):
He and his son had been building this incredible Star
Wars lego collection for decades, and as he was winding
down his affairs, he decided to sell it all on consignment.
Oh yeah, no, Soun's in on it. And Ed wanted
to get money to pay for his grandchild's college education,
so he took his collection to a Bricks and Minifigs
(36:31):
b a M franchise store. The stores, Yeah, in Kaiser, Oregon.
So it was owned at the time by Crystal Law
Gorman and her husband Benjamin Gorman. So it's a chain
and they had the franchise.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Oh, the Kaiser Gorman's.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yes, yes, the Kaiser Gormans. Ed's son, Brian Mansell said
the collection was made up of seven hundred and eighty
sets and one thousand, two hundred minifigures. It's a lot.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
That's a lot. It's a fair amount.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
It's a lot. Of teeny super guys.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah, that would hurt to step on. Kind.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
I hope they were like fifty percent. Ewok, I love
the eks. I love the ewoks and Babu Frick. Oh buddy. Okay,
so this collection was worth a pretty penny.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
I tell people that they're like, what's Elizabeth Like? I'm like,
she loves Babu Frick and ee, don't get her started
on ewoks.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
That is That's it. That's all there is to say
about me. Nothing else. That's my resume.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
BIV.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, iheart's like, can you see your bio? I'm like,
I love Ewoks and Babu send them a text me
get out of my face, Admiral. iHeart all right. So
the collection was worth around two hundred and seventy eight
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
But then something happened. In November of twenty twenty four,
Bricks and Minifigs Franchising BAMF issued a notice of immediate
termination against the Oregon store. So they said that Law
and Gorman defaulted on their accounts and that they were
transferring the franchise ownership to new operators Brandon Best and
(38:00):
Joshua Johnson. Okay, like, okay, fine, that's unfortunate. Brian Mansell
reached out and he was like, hey, like, if they're
going to be these new owners, I want to get
back the unsold consigned inventory from my dad's collection. And
that was part of the original consignment agreement that he
had like in writing and signed, Yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Can always go and get yourself.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
He could, he could reclaim unsold stock whenever he wanted to.
And the new operators are like, no, no, you can't.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah, what's the legal ground?
Speaker 2 (38:30):
They have all sorts of responses. Fast forward to May
twenty twenty six, Reckless Ben enters the picture.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Do I know him? See a friend of mine?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Forgotten YouTuber Ben Reckless Ben Schneider. He's a thirty year
old in La. He makes gonzo style videos. He has
like a very cross country runner look and energy to him. Okay,
and his videos are just not for me?
Speaker 3 (38:59):
How does he They're not for me?
Speaker 2 (39:00):
They're not made for me?
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Is he like do a man on the street interviews?
Speaker 5 (39:04):
No?
Speaker 2 (39:05):
No, everything is outsized and loud, okay. And the video
titles are like I overthrew a restaurant that was run
by a cult or. I hired two private investigators to
investigate each other.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
So he's like a Jake Paul Logan.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
And then as I'm looking at his videos and then
like have they have the suggestions on the right, they're
like five hundred versions of him of all these people
guys who just yeah, like overwhelmed. Yeah, And so I didn't.
I only watched what I had to watch.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
I go back to, like my professor gives a lecture
on the Ottoman. I'm just like.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Chris Cornell live version of Yeah. So I have to
tell you I logged out of YouTube before searching for
and watching the videos because I didn't want it to
wreck my algorithm. Give me like this Shenado Connor live
performances to suggest or you know, they're like I know
(39:59):
you like that, you know that one Madonna video.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
We'll let you see. We got another version of The
Grateful by John Mayer exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
But then I want these like little chodes popping up,
all right, So where was I algorithm? Someone who likely
already had his algorithm broken was Brian Mansell, because he
reached out to reckless Ben and asked for help. Okay,
so he wanted Ben to look into this whole mess,
and he wanted help getting the legos back.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
In some such reckless Ben, will you help me? My
only home?
Speaker 2 (40:32):
It was in the hologram, so Brian said. His dad,
the owner of the sets, hadn't been told about their
current existence in the liminal plane because he had a
health condition where he couldn't be upset. You know what, same,
edg Yeah, I definitely have it. So the initial video
(40:54):
is one hour and twenty five minutes long. It is
so loud and there are so many animations floating across
the screen while like some little dingus runs around with
a microphone.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
You watch the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Well, Ben either stands there or like sits in his
car talking to someone on speakerphone. Like he's constantly talking
on speakers.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Oh it's one of the car. I wasn't picturing that,
especially like in a gamer chair.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
No, no, no, he's like he has like a set
and sometimes he wears a pink tuxedo. What I'm telling you,
it makes no sense. And then I'm just like, I'm
not supposed to be doing this because it's a Sometimes
it's just a bare chest with the jacket. Sometimes it's
the full get up.
Speaker 5 (41:34):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah, So but he's always on speakerphone and he has
these little minions right huh. And I don't know if
you know this, but again I have the health condition
that means I can't be upset.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
It is.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I risked my life for this, Darren. The video has
six point two million views, by the way, damn, and
now I'm one of them. It feels so dirty. So
in pursue the story, Ben he went to the BAM
store that's holding the Lego sets. Yeah, and they told
him you got to go to corporate. And so Ben
(42:09):
goes to the corporate offices in Provo Utah thes and
minifigures and they're like, you know what, we can't help
you. You got to go to the store. They're just back
and forth, back and forth. So Ben went to the
store and it didn't go so well. Saren Saren closed
(42:31):
your eyes.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yes, I want you to picture it.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
You are a big Lego fan, like super fan. You
have tons of sets and a whole room in your
house dedicated to your passion. The thing is you only
build things from the architecture series. You just finished up
Trevy Fountain and you're on a mission to find a
specific news set new to you at least this one
has been discontinued. It's the Lincoln Memorial. You want to
(43:02):
get your hands on it. So that's why. On an
overcast Saturday, you're entering the bricks and Minifig store in
your town Kaiser Organ. You walk in and the bell
on the door chimes. At the counter is a woman
in a gray T shirt scrolling on her phone. She
glances up at you and says hi, then goes back
to her phone. You stop in front of her and
clear your throat. She looks up again. You ask her
(43:24):
if they have the Lincoln Memorial. She isn't exactly sure
what you're talking about, which you are used to a
lot of times people focus just on the franchise Legos,
the Star Wars and the Harry Potter and stuff. You
explain that you're beginning your search for the set here
close to home before you go online or travel to
other cities in order to source it. She points to
(43:44):
an area further down the counter that has all the
architecture sets and then goes back to scrolling on her phone.
You thank her, tipping your custom made Teddy Roosevelt campaign
hat at her. As you stroll down the counter, the
doorchime sounds, and you clock the new customer out of
the corner of your eye. It's a shaggy haired fellow
wearing thick rimmed glasses. You turn nonchalantly to glance at
(44:06):
the guy and notice that those are spyglasses. He's filming this.
You slyly tip the brim of your hat over the
side of your face, obscuring his view of you a
little bit. You scan the shelves and see just three
architecture sets. You already own all of them, but you
linger because something seems off about this interaction. Blooming at
(44:27):
the front of the store, the guy in the glasses
and his beanie wearing friend or holding sheets of paper.
They ask to get their lego sets back. The woman,
still scrolling your phone begins to dial a number while
telling the two young men to leave. They insist on
getting their sets back. At last, the clerk gets a
man on the phone, puts him on speaker, and hands
her phone to the men. The owner of the store,
(44:47):
you presume, he too, demands the men leave, coppering his
statements with grow in such a way that it seems stilted.
This goes on for some time. You continue to browse
quietly humming in classical tune in order to seem in
conspicuous but still able to listen. You see movement outside
of the store. It's the police. An officer directs the
(45:07):
men outside and begins to speak with them. They show
the officer the papers they're holding. The officer shakes his head.
You decide to leave the store. They don't have what
you want, and you'd like to hear the conversation with
the police outside, or at least what you can catch
as you walk by. The door chimes. As you leave,
you walk past the officer just as he is telling
the men that they are permanently banned from the store.
(45:30):
You walk to your car, then move your hat, settle
into the seat, and drive home. You are sure you
can get that Lincoln memorial online with better customer service
and far less drama. You like your Teddy Rose, You
know it, so Zarin. Watching this interaction in the video
(45:51):
made my chest tight.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Oh dude, I would be enraged, do you know? My
again would be hot.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
The cop and Ben have a conversation in which neither
understands the law or knows how to effectively express themselves.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
So Ben is the emotion at a motion.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
I've got the paper and it's my friend, and like,
we need our bricks back, we need our sets back.
Where are they? This is no, I'm sorry, like he
and you're permanently banned. He's like for permanent trespass. No,
you can't do it like that, dude. You don't just
get to declare it anyway. So the two of them
(46:28):
having this sort of like moron off, it's really hard
for me. And the whole time, I'm like, why didn't
the man cells just hire a lawyer totally, like that's
who you should have brought in. Don't go to reckless band.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
No, even the cheapest lawyer in town would be better
than I don't.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Know if they want to or couldn't afford to hire
a good lawyer.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
I think they're trying to create a tempest in a tea,
which seems to work if it's about so.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
After Reckless Ben they go with a name like that,
it has to end well, whatever it is, it's a tempest, okay.
So Ben became a thorn in bricks and Minifig's side
this was excellent content for him, I bet. So he
went to the house in American Fork, Utah of one
(47:17):
of the new store franchise owners Joshua.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Johnson camera's on.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
I'm sure and that that's crossing a line there, buddy,
to go to the new owner's home in another state
is so bam alleges that Ben and his team impersonated
delivery personnel like ups drivers in order to get entry
into the home.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
That's crossing.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
They impersonated members of religious congregations and officers of the court.
They put defamatory signs and banners in the neighborhood. One
across the street read I stole a dying man's life savings.
It was like right across from the guy's house.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
I do applaud that.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
And it's in the videos. Oh yeah, they have this
whole thing with it.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
That's the legal line. I'm on the side of it
is like, you can definitely let the neighbors know. Yeah,
he stole a dying man's legouse.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
All the hygienks got been arrested, okay twice.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
He currently faces misdemeanor charges of stalking, targeted residential picketing,
wait what apparently, disorderly conduct, criminal trespass. All that was
filed on March tenth, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
He said that police searched his vehicle, they arrested him,
jailed him for multiple days, and that an officer dislocated
his shoulder during one of the arrests. He said that,
like the cops told him, oh, someone gave us a
report that you have heroin in your car. Like anyway,
police body cam and dashcam footage was later released, but
portions were taken.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Out and got missing minutes.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
And then there's this whole thing online where people say
they have it and then they can't share it anyway.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Once they get lawyers involved, this is gonna get crazy.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
Well, a defense attorney, They got a defense attorney. They
raised concerns about the underlying search warrant, noting that it
cited an investigation into stalking, but described officers searching for
stolen lego sets as evidence. It's like that no so
Ben later claimed that a new no bail warrant had
(49:17):
been issued against him for unexplained reasons, and that he
had fled to Mexico fed Well, and usually when you
run to Mexico, you don't tell anyone about it totally.
But every single person involved in this is.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
That just like a nickname for California in Utah, he
fled to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
I it was Mexico at one time. Everyone involved in this,
every single person, has to put all of their thoughts
and actions on video for all to see.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Like everybody. The cops are doing.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Totally American fork police. They pushed back hard.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
On the claims of Mexico Facebook videos.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
They said there are no active warrants for him and
they're not seeking him. Yeah. The police chief issued it
to twenty six minute public statement. More video. They're like, look,
bodycam footage doesn't back up what Ben is saying about
the injuries. There were no complaints logged during his detention
or his booking. He's lying and then okay, enter the
(50:16):
civil cases. So there's BAM versus schneider mansell at all.
May thirtieth, twenty twenty six, BAM sued Ben the Man
cells others, reckless Ben LLC, you know, all his little
minions invoking Utah's reco statute.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
They accused them of running a quote coordinated multi platform
campaign involving false accusations, fabricated claims, deceptive practices, and manufactured
confrontations to extort money, racketeer, profiteer and damage BAM's business.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
They're protecting the brand.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, so BAM. Their filing also brings up the whole
thing about Ben's team, impersonating the delivery workers, the churchgoers,
all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
What are you going to do?
Speaker 2 (51:01):
He's so gonzo. Then there's the countersuit from the old
franchise owners, So Crystal Law Gorman, Benjamin Gorman, they filed
their own site and they said that BAM Franchising wrongly
seized their store without notice, that they forced them out
under threats to call the police, and they were never
compensated for all the confiscated.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
Them and Reckless Ben could get together and do it well.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Then they filed a motion June sixteenth, not too long ago,
to intervene in the Reckless Ben lawsuit, saying that they're
not defendants in that case and that they're pursuing a
separate dispute with BAM. And that really gummed up the works.
So BAM Franchising went ahead issued a takedown notice against
Ben's Patreon page. Yeah, his videos go up there before
(51:47):
they go to YouTube. You know what this calls for
is a video zeron Patreon. CEO Jack Kanti publicly told
the company to quote stuff it and sue Patreon directly. Instead,
He's like, we're not taking his stuff down. Try try me.
Speaker 3 (52:04):
That's a good Which side of the bread your butter
is exactly?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Exactly? And so Bam is also accused of trying to
seize the go fundme that was set up to raise
money for the man Cell family, though they deny it.
Speaker 3 (52:18):
The go fund me better who denies.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Yeah, BAM's like, we're not trying to take the gofund
go fund me. He's raised more than five hundred thousand dollars.
Good Ben says that BAM's lawsuit, Uh, the framing of
it is like harassment, totally unfair. They say stuff that
like he made bomb threads or he threatened to kill
franchise owners and he just wanted a chance to tell
(52:43):
his side of the story. He said, Okay. He says
being served with a suit has like effectively gagged him. Yeah,
needs to make videos and post them for the world
to see, or he will die. That's his medical condition.
So he he said he finished a third installment of
his video series, but he can't post it because doing
so would send him quote immediately to.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Jail and break injunction. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
Cost him both his own countersuit and the GoFundMe funds,
and he's made sure to post a handful of related
shorty videos. There's like a workaround video where he calls
Bam quote this mystery company that I'm no longer allowed
to talk about, Honey, it doesn't work that way. So
Bam is like shooting down every claim that Ben makes.
(53:29):
They say that whole collection was worth sixty to eighty
thousand dollars, and they're like, ps, when we took over
the store, the whole place was only had two thousand
and five thousand dollars worth of sets in there, so
they didn't even have like the man Cell stuff wasn't
even in there. So Bam also says that the original
consignment with ed Mansell should never have been approved because
(53:54):
they weren't authorized to do that as a franchise. But
they're like, you know what, We'll still we can negotiate
a real solution with the man Cell family.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
So shady they I want to judge who actually understands
us to come in and gives like smackdowns and real justice. Yes,
set some precedent for this stuff.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Bam says that the Gormans sold the inventory off before
they seized the store, and that it's now that that
store is closed permanently now. Yeah, and then other stores
around the region have faced harassment and threats, like the
fans get off, fired up, and it got weird. Of course,
conspiracy theories started.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
The involved like the Denver Airport.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Ben's videos leaned into it with like accusations of a
Mormon mafia that was covering up the Lego scandals. I
wonder because like most of the BAM corporate employees remember
of the Mormon church apparently I figured, and so that
that made the whole thing super viral and like pretty offensive.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Bet.
Speaker 2 (54:52):
And then you know, like the city the city council
meetings are just jam packed in American fork, jam packed
with people who are like free Bend. All of a sudden,
they go from no one showing up to its packed house.
It's unresolved right now and fast moving. So you know
that the one case has been stalled out because the
(55:13):
Gormans intervened, and then you know the Kaiser police are
still reviewing all these things. There's the Utah misdemeanor charges.
Ben's part three video is still unreleased.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
I'm waiting breath is Saron.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (55:30):
Ah, Man, I'm really pulling for the man Cell family
on that, Like, you know, I feel bad that they
got drug into this, And there's just a bunch of
like weird, like it sounds like greedy, exploitative, and like
you know, spotlight hogging. People jump in the way and
you lose sight of what this is really about, which
is this guy who's trying to look out for his grandchild. Yeah, yeah,
(55:53):
you know, we've lost sight of all of that. So
I find that often this is the case when you
and this is not like a slighted YouTube influencers, but
when people it's their job to get attention, they steal
the attention from the thing they're trying to bring attention
to when they're trying to be on a crusade about
yeah blah blah blah. So I'm not trying to be
(56:13):
critical of our modern moment of media, but I do
wish that people, as you often point out to me,
and I point out to myself, I'm all about fundamentals,
which is like, can we keep it about what this
was about and figure out how to get a remedy
for that, and then we can get back to all
this like nonsense. You guys can all shout at each
other and do like your like you know, daytime TV
(56:34):
reality show energy or whatever it is you guys are
all about of Like, yeah, I get excited yell and
screaming I'm taking his sign team that or whatever, because
like I know that people seem to want that, but like,
can we do that? Second can be the other thing.
So what's yours, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2 (56:50):
I think it's interesting that lego crimes have spiked recently,
and like the robbing bricks is in the zeitgeist.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Oh completely yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
I mean my favorite band, Chip the Crow just released
a song about Lego theft. Really the Crow, do you
want to hear a little bit of it.
Speaker 4 (57:22):
I'm gonna ask you your leg I'm gonna say, Cole,
I'm gone.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
It's so good.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
I love Chip Chip the Crow, aren't.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
They They're like they're the best, and it's like this.
I think that's gonna be part of the new album.
I'm hoping, you know, after that though, I need to
talk back.
Speaker 3 (58:01):
Oh my god, I let you.
Speaker 5 (58:11):
So. I had to rent a car recently and they
were like all right, you know, going over all the
paperwork that nobody reads and like, sign, here's how much
the rate is, and sign here here's our damage waiver.
Sign Here this is saying that you're gonna fill it
up with gas. Sign here this is the saying that
you're not gonna use the car to rob a bank.
And I was like what, because you know, the only
reason they have that clause is because someone indeed use
(58:34):
the car from that rental car location to rob a bank.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Not as ridiculous, They're like, quick, put a clause in
the contract. Do you think if I'm gonna go rob
a bank, do you think I care that it's breach
of contract?
Speaker 3 (58:47):
Exactly? Like this indemnifies us under this county's laws.
Speaker 2 (58:51):
Like, oh my goodness, that's great. That's it for today.
You can find us online at ridiculous crime dot com.
We're also at ready culous Crime on both blue Sky
and Instagram. You can email us at ridiculous Crime at
gmail dot com. Most importantly, leave a talkback on the
iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth
(59:14):
Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by famous YouTube
shock jock Dave Coustin. Our ridiculous assistant is Lego Broker
to the Stars Terry Maldonado. Fong research is by figuring
appraiser Marissa Brown. The theme song is by Lego Shrek
set collector Thomas Lee and Lego Paw Patrol collector Travis Dutton.
Additional tunes provided by Chip Chip. The crow host wardrobe
(59:37):
is provided by Botany five hundred producer Dave Coustin's wardrobe
by Mister Guy of Beverly Hills, guest heron makeup by
Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are Barcode specialist Ben
Bollen and Post Defense Noel Brown.
Speaker 4 (59:56):
Eligoa l E GUO l e G don't tell l
echo my leg goes, don't tell studio my legs, don't
tell le chudio my l A l e gudo l
(01:00:19):
e G.
Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Don't talk l.
Speaker 4 (01:00:23):
Leogos l e guo l e.
Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Don't talk my.
Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
L e guo l e l e g l e go.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio four more
podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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