High-Tech Silicon Valley Executive Steals Thousands Of Lego Sets

Thomas Langenbach, a silicon valley executive with global software giant SAP was caught recently as he attempted to steal Lego’s from a local Target store in Cupertino, California. According to Target officials the thief was using his tech savvy to print his own barcodes which he placed on boxes of Lego’s and then sold on eBay at deep discounts.

Langenbach was charged with theft on Monday after police in Mountain View, California received a warrant to search the executives $2 million home and were shocked to find hundreds of boxes containing various Lego sets.

During their search officers also found dozens of bar code stickers in Thomas Langenbach’s home and car, all of which sat in neatly ordered ziploc bags.

Mountain View police spokeswoman Liz Wylie told the Mercury News:

“In his house, we found hundreds of boxes of unopened Lego sets. He sold 2,100 items in just over a year on eBay, and made $30,000. The motive was clearly money. Why does he want the money? I don’t know. I can think of a million different possible scenarios. For some people it’s boredom. For some it’s a compulsive thing.”

If you bought Legos from “tomsbrickyard” you were one of the many eBay buyers who received deeply discounted Lego’s from the Langenbach.

Langenbach would likely have continued to get away with his ploy if workers at the Target store had not recognized him and then put him on immediate surveillance. Target wanting to catch the high tech thief issued flyers with Thomas Langenbach picture to surrounding stores which eventually led to his arrest on May 8.

Not only was Lagenbach selling full sets of Legos, investigators found “many, many sets of Legos that he had built, separated in bricks by color, by type, by size.”

Langenbach has worked for SAP — Systems, Applications and Products — since 1988. It is unclear at this time if Thomas Langenbach is still employed by SAP or if his arrest as a high-tech Lego thief has done him in.