Irvine LEGO heist: pasta swap used to get refunds, police say
Irvine police say 28-year-old Jarrelle Augustine swapped valuable LEGO pieces with dried pasta inside boxes and returned them to Target for refunds, part of a nationwide LEGO-theft pattern. The scheme is tied to about $34,000 in stolen or damaged merchandise across roughly 70 incidents, with about $4,000 linked to Orange County stores. Augustine, arrested in Paramount (originally from Texas), faces grand theft charges.