The California Highway Patrol recovered approximately $300,000 in stolen LEGO merchandise as part of an organized retail theft operation.
Officials arrested four individuals who were allegedly building up the scheme, selling the stolen merchandise to "fencing locations" or retailers.
Fencing locations are what officials refer to as an individual or group of individuals who buy stolen merchandise and sell it at legitimate businesses, swap meets, or online. Fences may or may not always be aware that the merchandise that they are purchasing was stolen.
According to victim retailers, they are still calculating the cost but estimate the total losses at approximately $300,000.
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CHP investigators with the Southern Division Organized Retail Crime Taskforce made the arrests while serving search warrants at four locations in Los Angeles and Orange County.
LEGO sets like the Millennium Falcon from the Star Wars franchise can retail for close to $900. Pictures provided by CHP showed dozens of these and other rare sets on display at the retailers.
CHP investigators arrested Jeremy Johnson of Orange, Marta Hardt of Huntington Beach, Chung-Pei Yu of Studio City, and Shen Li of Brea.
The four were arrested on charges that include organized retail theft, grand theft, and conspiracy to commit a crime.
