Lego Loving Tech Executive Convicted Of Burglary

In 2012, technology executive Thomas Langenbach was busted after stealing a massive amount of Legos from various Target stores. Langenbach has been working as vice president at SAP Labs’ Integration and Certification Center, but whether or not his recent conviction will effect his job has yet to be seen.

Before he was busted in 2012, Langenbach was able to scam stores with fake barcodes, which he put over the real ones. This allowed him to leave stores without paying the full price for any of the Legos. When the arrest originally occurred, Mercury News reported that investigators found a large amount of building blocks within Langenbach’s $2 million home as well as Ziploc baggies with the barcode stickers.

Not only did he have a deep passion for Legos and was probably deprived of them as a child, but Langenbach sold $30,000 worth of the toys on Ebay and had a 99.9% positive seller rating according to Wired. In total, he was able to sell 2,100 Lego items online with the majority of those sales being pure profit.

By using fake barcodes, Langenbach reportedly bought a Millennium Falcon Lego set for just $49 instead of its normal $279 retail price as well as a $90 Anakin set for $35. On May 8 2012, Langenbach’s luck ran out when a loss prevention officer noticed that he seemed quite suspicious while looking browsing the Lego sets. The office put him under surveillance and then quickly noticed that he was replacing all of the barcode stickers with his own and then checking them on the aisle scanners to make sure that the codes worked.

Upon entering his house, officials found hundreds of unopened Lego boxes as well as tons of structures that Langenbach had built himself.

As a result of his crime, Langenbach has been convicted of burglary and will serve one month in jail, followed by five months of house arrest and three years of probation.