Strange doesn't even begin to describe Silicon Valley tech executive Thomas Langenbach's arrest. Langenbach was arrested swapping barcodes on Lego boxes at several Target retails, buying them at huge discounts and then selling them on eBay to turn a profit. It was all working out so well, until he got caught.
According to Mercury News, Langenbach "brought his own bar code stickers to the store, used them to cover up the real ones, and then purchased his plastic prey at enormous discounts."
It was actually Target security that cracked the case, then turned the bar code bandit over to the cops. According to police, Langenbach was observed buying two Lego items at reduced prices on April 20 -- truly a Black Friday for him, if convicted. Then he hustled over to the Mountain View Target and bought two more Lego sets at a fire sale savings of $170.
That set off a quiet dragnet in Target stores, with flyers issued to security that included a picture of Langenbach, though his identity was still unknown.
The story gets more bizarre when you hear that Langenbach, an executive at Systems, Applications and Products (SAP) lived in a $2 million home. Why was he pulling off these barcode switcheroos, when he was clearly financially capable of buying his own Lego sets at full price?
"The motive was clearly money," said Mountain View police spokeswoman Liz Wylie. We think there's more to it than just money.
Our assessment? Dude was just crazy for Lego bricks. Considering that investigators found "many, many sets of Legos that he had built, separated in bricks by color, by type, by size," it's safe to say the man had at least some fondness for brick creations. We totally know what it feels like to be a Lego junkie, but we'd never follow Langenbach's footsteps.
Via MercuryNews
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