Police arrest man who replaced US$34,000 worth of Lego pieces with pasta

A lego set and semolina pasta are shown in this combination photo. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man/Larry Crowe)

Police in California have arrested a man for grand theft, though the bounty isn’t a fancy car or pricy electronics.

It’s Lego pieces.

In a pun-heavy release, the Irvine police department (IPD) said that US$34,000 worth of Lego pieces were stolen from their boxes from Targets across the U.S. and in some cases, replaced with dried pasta.

“You read that correctly,” the IPD wrote in an Instagram post. “We are talking about durum wheat semolina pasta, and what we are calling a pasta-tively terrible plan.”

Target reported at least 70 thefts nationwide that were traced back to the same suspect.

“But like most bad builds, this one didn’t hold together,” the IPD wrote. “IPD detectives snapped into action, conducted surveillance, and identified the suspect.”

Jarrelle Augustine, 28, of Paramount, Calif., was arrested for grand theft and taken into custody at the Orange County Jail.

In an Instagram reel from the IPD’s page, video shows a suspect pulling boxes of Lego from a shelf, along with images from his arrest and the boxes of Lego with pasta in them.

“Everything was awesome in this Lego crime spree until we got involved,” they wrote, referencing “Everything Is Awesome!!!” from the 2014 film “The Lego Movie”, a play on the Tegan and Sara song.

The police had a stern warning for anyone looking to put together the pieces for a similar stunt.

“If your master plan involves swapping LEGOs for linguine, we can promise your plan will be cooked al dente,” they wrote.