# Man steals $200,000 in Lego sets **URL:** \ **Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic\ **Created:** [November 25, 2005, 11:15am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965 "2005-11-25T11:15:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![camarojoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c67d28/32.png) [@camarojoe](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/camarojoe)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 11:15am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965/1 "2005-11-25T11:15:37Z")
[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10200275/](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10200275/) Maybe he can make a prison out of Lego sets for himself now. Authorities use 20-foot truck to cart away evidence from suspect’s home PORTLAND, Ore. - Agents had to use a 20-foot truck to cart away the evidence from a suspect’s house — mountains of Lego bricks. William Swanberg, 40, of Reno, Nev., is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of the colorful plastic building blocks. Swanberg was indicted by a grand jury in Hillsboro, a Portland suburb, which charged him with stealing Lego sets from Target stores. Target estimates Swanberg stole up to $200,000 worth of the brick sets pilfered from their stores in Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California. The Legos were resold on the Internet, officials said. Attempts to reach Swanberg at a county jail, where he was being held on $250,000 bail, were unsuccessful. It was not known if he had retained an attorney. **Bar codes switched** Swanberg is accused of switching the bar codes on Lego boxes, replacing an expensive one with a cheaper label, said Detective Troy Dolyniuk, a member of the Washington County fraud and identity theft enforcement team. Target officials contacted police after noticing the same pattern at their stores in the five western states. A Target security guard stopped Swanberg at a Portland-area store Nov. 17, after he bought 10 boxes of the Star Wars Millennium Falcon set. In his parked car, detectives found 56 of the Star Wars sets, valued at $99 each, as well as 27 other Lego sets. In a laptop found inside Swanberg’s car, investigators also found the addresses of numerous Target stores in the Portland area, their locations carefully plotted on a mapping software. **Records of the Lego collector’s Web site, [Bricklink.Com](http://Bricklink.Com), show that Swanberg has sold nearly $600,000 worth of Legos since 2002, said Dolyniuk.** Lego’s Danish founder Ole Kirk Christiansen named the famous bricks in 1934 by fusing two Danish words, “leg” and “godt” meaning “play well.” Children across the world spend 5 billion hours every year playing with Lego bricks, available in 90 different colors, according to the company’s Web site. ---
**Author:** ![JEG](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/jeg/32/7246_2.png) [@JEG](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/JEG)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 11:21am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965/2 "2005-11-25T11:21:40Z")
wow…thats actually not abad idea lol…too bad he got caught. ---
**Author:** ![Juan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a698b9/32.png) [@Juan](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Juan)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 11:22am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965/3 "2005-11-25T11:22:00Z")
:jawdrop:sold nearly $600,000 worth of Legos since 2002 ---
**Author:** ![Janny](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/janny/32/7594_2.png) [@Janny](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Janny)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 11:35am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965/4 "2005-11-25T11:35:26Z")
I like this last little fun fact: “Children across the world spend 5 billion hours every year playing with Lego bricks, available in 90 different colors, according to the company’s Web site.” like they really know. “available in 90 different colors” is totally unnecessary. (advertising) if I wrote that in an article for one of my classes, I’d get a zero. ---
**Author:** ![HotRodKid](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/hotrodkid/32/7609_2.png) [@HotRodKid](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/HotRodKid)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 11:43am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965/5 "2005-11-25T11:43:53Z")
ive had this idea many times, never actualy decided to try it tho > [@Janny](#): > > “available in 90 different colors” is totally unnecessary. (advertising) > if I wrote that in an article for one of my classes, I’d get a zero. well we all know that school ≠ reality ---
**Author:** ![JEG](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/jeg/32/7246_2.png) [@JEG](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/JEG)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 11:53am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965/6 "2005-11-25T11:53:27Z")
> [@Janny](#): > > I like this last little fun fact: > > “Children across the world spend 5 billion hours every year playing with Lego bricks, available in 90 different colors, according to the company’s Web site.” > > like they really know. > > “available in 90 different colors” is totally unnecessary. (advertising) > if I wrote that in an article for one of my classes, I’d get a zero. then your teacher is stupid, for the times they take the average time it takes somebody to build the model, then multiply it by the amount the sold…those are key figures, you cant argue with them. Imean shit im not a buisness major but i know how all that shit works. I worked at the maize, it takes roughly 40 min to walk through phaze 2. I could look up how many people we had at the maize and multiply that number by the amount of time it takes on average (40 min) and say ok well people spent \*\*\*\*\*\* hrs in phase 2 this year. As far as Available in 90 colors, well…they are lol…how can you aregue ith that? If ford sais their new trucks are avlailable in 20 new colors, you cant sit there and call them liars about it. maby you have never played with legos, but they do take alot of time, and they do come in a ton of colors, Hell i got legos still, and i know for a fact its got at least 5 shades of yellow. ---
**Author:** ![newman](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/newman/32/7569_2.png) [@newman](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/newman)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 11:59am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965/7 "2005-11-25T11:59:03Z")
i think she is mainly refer to the colors part. It seems like such a shameless plug and has really very little relevance to the actual story. It would be like reading an article about a “man accused of stealing 3 ford trucks”, then having the article mention that they got 23 mpg and could tow 3000 pounds. ---
**Author:** ![Diesel](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/diesel/32/7313_2.png) [@Diesel](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Diesel)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 12:12pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965/8 "2005-11-25T12:12:37Z")
So basically one of Santa’s elves got caught? ---
**Author:** ![Jack](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/jack/32/7613_2.png) [@Jack](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Jack)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 12:16pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965/9 "2005-11-25T12:16:58Z")
i need to get back into legos… that was a cheap hobby ---
**Author:** ![JEG](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/jeg/32/7246_2.png) [@JEG](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/JEG)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2005, 12:21pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/man-steals-200-000-in-lego-sets/4965/10 "2005-11-25T12:21:10Z")
> [@newman](#): > > i think she is mainly refer to the colors part. It seems like such a shameless plug and has really very little relevance to the actual story. > > It would be like reading an article about a “man accused of stealing 3 ford trucks”, then having the article mention that they got 23 mpg and could tow 3000 pounds. yeah lol i know what you mean, i was just sayin…they know their figures.