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