A 28-year-old California man allegedly turned Target stores into his own personal LEGO factory only to swap the bricks for dry pasta and walk away with thousands in refunds. Jarrelle Augustine from Paramount faces grand theft charges after police say he ran the unusual scheme across multiple states.
The low-tech hustle targeted high-end Star Wars and Marvel LEGO sets. Augustine would buy the boxes, pull out the valuable minifigures and pieces at home, stuff the containers with dry pasta, reseal them, and return everything for full cash back. The pasta matched the weight and rattle of loose LEGO bricks when store staff shook the packages.
Police say Augustine hit Target stores roughly 70 times. The loot spanned from California to Texas, Tennessee, New Jersey, and Florida. The total loss suffered by the shop was estimated at around $34,000. He specialized in high-end sets that had been marked at a price between $80 and close to $500 apiece, because of the valuable minifigs in these sets.
A tweet from X.
The detectives from the Irvine Police Department initiated an investigation following two incidents in Orange County, involving the suspicious refunds, totaling about $350 back in December. These were followed by examining the credit card information and surveillance footage from the stores in Costa Mesa, Irvine, and Westminster. Stakeouts and cross-state return reports tied everything together. Officers arrested Augustine on April 15, 2026, during a coordinated effort.
A short CBS Evening News segment hosted by Tony Dokoupil exploded online after No Jumper shared the clip. The 21-second package opens with the “PASTA PLOT” graphic and LEGO bricks on screen. Surveillance footage shows a man in a camouflage hoodie browsing the toy aisle, grabbing large Star Wars and Marvel boxes, and heading out. Cut to evidence photos: clear bins packed with sorted Stormtroopers and Marvel characters. Then bags of supermarket pasta lined up next to an empty LEGO box on the floor. The clip ends with Irvine Police bodycam video officers cuffing Augustine beside a car in a covered parking area and walking him out. On-screen text reads
“THIEF ACCUSED OF SWITCHING LEGO PIECES FOR PASTA.”
A search of Augustine’s Paramount apartment turned up exactly what investigators expected: stockpiles of loose LEGO pieces sorted into containers and multiple bags of the same dry pasta used in the returns. Irvine PD posted the details on social media with a bit of humor, calling it a “pasta-tively terrible plan” and adding,
“If your master plan involves swapping LEGOs for linguine, we can promise your plan will be cooked al dente.”
Return fraud like this highlights a larger problem facing big-box stores. Organized retail crime groups have grown more creative, exploiting lenient policies on high-value collectibles. LEGO sets remain popular targets because individual minifigures and rare pieces hold strong resale value. A recent U.S. Senate hearing on organized theft noted strategic retail incidents have risen sharply nationwide, with states including California, Texas, Tennessee, New Jersey, and Florida passing new laws to let prosecutors add up losses across multiple cases.
