IRVINE, CA — Police in Irvine say a 28-year-old California man is accused of running an unusual return scam that involved buying Lego sets, opening the boxes, removing the figurines and sometimes replacing the toys with dried pasta before taking them back to Target.
Authorities identified the suspect as Jarrelle Augustine and said the alleged scheme led to a grand theft arrest on April 14. Investigators say the retailer reported losses tied to fake returns that stretched across multiple stores and added up to roughly $34,000.
How investigators say the scheme worked
According to police, Target’s loss prevention team noticed one open Lego box that was missing figurines and alerted officers. That discovery helped launch a wider investigation that began in December 2025, when police started looking into a pattern of suspicious returns.
Police say Augustine would buy Lego sets, unpack them, remove the pieces, and then bring the boxes back as though they were untouched. In some cases, investigators allege, the boxes were filled with pasta noodles instead of the original components.
Target losses and the resale problem
Officials said the company could not resell the returned sets because the packages had been opened and the contents altered. Irvine police said investigators believe the missing parts had value on the secondary market, which made the returns part of a broader theft problem rather than a one-off prank…