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How Lego became the black market’s hottest trade · The Morning Edition

• 0:04
  S1: Just picture it. Under the cover of night police detectives
• 0:07
  S1: raid a clandestine drug lab in Melbourne belonging to an
• 0:11
  S1: organised crime gang. But instead of picking through just the
• 0:15
  S1: usual beakers, wads of cash and perhaps the unmistakable acetone
• 0:20
  S1: odour of ice, they stumble on something else. Boxes upon
• 0:25
  S1: boxes of Lego. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris, and you're listening
• 0:30
  S1: to The Morning Edition from The Age and the Sydney
• 0:33
  S1: Morning Herald. Today, senior reporter Chris Vedelago on why your
• 0:38
  S1: kids favorite toy has become the Underworld's new favorite currency,
• 0:43
  S1: and why it's so good for laundering dirty money. It's
• 0:47
  S1: April the 20th. Welcome back, Chris, to the podcast.
• 0:53
  S2: Thank you.
• 0:54
  S1: Okay. You've got to tell us, how did you first
• 0:56
  S1: cotton on to this story?
• 0:58
  S3: Well, it's the strangest thing. So I was in Melbourne CBD.
• 1:02
  S3: I was supposed to be going to an appointment. I
• 1:03
  S3: got the calendar wrong. So I had this time to
• 1:06
  S3: kill and my kid started to really get into Lego.
• 1:09
  S3: And so I thought he'd been really good recently. So
• 1:11
  S3: I thought, you know what? I'll go to Kmart in
• 1:13
  S3: the city and I'll buy a small piece of Lego.
• 1:15
  S3: So I go into the city Kmart, and it's two,
• 1:17
  S3: it's two floors. And you go up to the top
• 1:19
  S3: floor where the Lego is, except all the really good stuff.
• 1:22
  S3: What I wanted, what he wanted was Star Wars. Lego
• 1:24
  S3: was behind this locked glass cabinet. And when I got there,
• 1:27
  S3: you know, there's this blue button. It says, you know,
• 1:29
  S3: push for service. And there's this woman already there kind
• 1:32
  S3: of banging on the button. And I said, what's going on?
• 1:34
  S3: She says, well, we can't get it without someone coming up.
• 1:37
  S3: So we must have waited ten minutes for pushing on
• 1:40
  S3: this button for someone to come from the service counter
• 1:42
  S3: downstairs to come up to unlock the cabinet. And I
• 1:45
  S3: just wanted this little, little $12 Star Wars thing, which
• 1:48
  S3: somehow is behind a locked cabinet.
• 1:50
  S1: So it's like, it's like a random, um, big store,
• 1:53
  S1: but it's got like methadone clinic vibes. Is that what
• 1:55
  S1: I'm hearing?
• 1:55
  S4: It was, yeah, it was just, it was bizarre. Like
• 1:57
  S4: you'd see this with.
• 1:58
  S3: If you wanted to buy a knife or over-the-counter medicine,
• 2:02
  S3: someone getting in your face about the product. And so
• 2:05
  S3: she wouldn't even give us the Lego that we'd each selected.
• 2:08
  S3: The woman would select and I had selected. She hand
• 2:10
  S3: carried them down a flight of stairs to the cash register,
• 2:13
  S3: and then basically kept them in her hand until we
• 2:15
  S3: had scanned our credit cards and then hands over this
• 2:18
  S3: box of Lego, this $12 piece of Lego. And I
• 2:20
  S3: was like, what is going on? Like? And she said,
• 2:22
  S3: we can't keep it on the shelves. People just steal it.
• 2:25
  S3: They steal it all the time. And so because my
• 2:28
  S3: kids getting into it, I started going all over the
• 2:30
  S3: particularly different parts of the city trying to find different sets.
• 2:33
  S3: And I was checking out the security at each one.
• 2:35
  S3: Big W, Kmart, target, the independent toy stores, and all
• 2:40
  S3: of them had various levels of security. And I kept
• 2:43
  S3: kind of noticing this trend, and I kept asking questions
• 2:46
  S3: of the people there. Why do you have this thing
• 2:48
  S3: bound up like a piece of jewelry and security tags?
• 2:51
  S3: And they're like, because people grab it off the shelves
• 2:53
  S3: and they run.
• 2:54
  S1: So are they selling on the black market or is
• 2:57
  S1: that or is it a particular kind of Lego people
• 2:59
  S1: are stealing? Is it just Star Wars or something else?
• 3:01
  S3: Well, you've got two types of people who steal Lego.
• 3:03
  S3: There's the opportunistic smash and grab thieves, who basically go
• 3:07
  S3: into a Kmart and grab a 50 or $100 set
• 3:10
  S3: of Lego off the shelf, and they run off with
• 3:12
  S3: it for them, who are usually trying to get a
• 3:14
  S3: quick fix for drugs, Lego is actually it holds its
• 3:18
  S3: value remarkably well on the black market. So $100 set
• 3:21
  S3: of Lego will sell for $50, which is a great
• 3:24
  S3: return for somebody with a drug problem who might be
• 3:26
  S3: boosting something else, like a mobile phone or whatever. It
• 3:30
  S3: doesn't hold its value.
• 3:31
  S1: Okay, wait, no, I've got to stop you there. So
• 3:33
  S1: a car depreciates the second you drive it off the
• 3:36
  S1: lot like everyone you know. So why the heck is Lego?
• 3:38
  S1: Why do you get such a different turn for Lego?
• 3:41
  S3: Well, this is the thing I discovered because I was
• 3:43
  S3: also hunting for it for our own reasons. Is it?
• 3:46
  S3: Almost nobody throws Lego out, right? Like you keep it,
• 3:49
  S3: you keep it. And I've spoken to people since who
• 3:51
  S3: who've messaged me after I wrote the story saying I
• 3:54
  S3: got every piece of Lego I had since I was six.
• 3:56
  S1: And how old are these people now?
• 3:58
  S3: In their 40s. And I started, I started going to
• 4:02
  S3: like op shops and I'd ask the guy, have you
• 4:03
  S3: got any Lego? And he goes, nah, man, we can't
• 4:05
  S3: keep it here. As soon as somebody donates it, it disappears.
• 4:07
  S3: Somebody will come and buy it. People don't throw out Lego,
• 4:10
  S3: they keep it or they sell it, or they shift
• 4:11
  S3: it on. And there's always demand for it. For some
• 4:13
  S3: reason it's and I called it in the story plastic gold.
• 4:17
  S1: Okay, so tell us why this is now. I told
• 4:19
  S1: you before recording, I'm a massive Lego nerd. I have
• 4:22
  S1: collected my own mini figurines that, you know, somehow seem
• 4:25
  S1: to me to be Canadian, a lumberjack. I've stretched it
• 4:28
  S1: to a Yeti with an icy pole. Total stretch doesn't count,
• 4:31
  S1: but whatever. In my own mind, it does. Why do
• 4:33
  S1: people love Lego?
• 4:35
  S2: I mean.
• 4:35
  S3: Kids of all ages love it, right? And adults love
• 4:38
  S3: it because what you can do with it. But, um,
• 4:40
  S3: I don't know, there's just something about it. And as
• 4:42
  S3: I discovered, it's not just Lego, but it's certain parts
• 4:45
  S3: of Lego. So what I learned was that a lot
• 4:48
  S3: of the time, the set itself is not important. What's
• 4:51
  S3: important is the minifigs inside of it. So the minifigs,
• 4:55
  S3: the secondary market for minifigs is crazy. Like I went
• 4:57
  S3: to a shop and they were selling some of these minifigs,
• 5:00
  S3: really exclusive ones for like 400 bucks.
• 5:03
  S1: And for the uninitiated, that's short form for mini figurine.
• 5:06
  S1: And so these are just the figurine with the movable
• 5:08
  S1: arms and legs, the replaceable heads. They often have, you know,
• 5:12
  S1: cool outfits. If it's a Star Wars thing, they might
• 5:14
  S1: actually have a fabric cape, like if it's Yoda.
• 5:16
  S2: Yeah. And there's.
• 5:17
  S3: Harry Potter ones and there's.
• 5:19
  S2: Yeah.
• 5:19
  S3: There's Disney ones.
• 5:20
  S1: Okay, so we love minifigs. We get this. Now you've
• 5:23
  S1: told us they keep their value to a remarkable degree,
• 5:25
  S1: but why are they such a target for criminals? Because,
• 5:28
  S1: you know, keeping their value is one thing. But this
• 5:30
  S1: has become a massive problem. You know, you spoke to
• 5:33
  S1: one shop owner, Chris Harwood. He said it's an easy sell.
• 5:37
  S1: It's so popular. There's so much of a market for it.
• 5:39
  S1: There's all this talk about how it's a better asset
• 5:41
  S1: than gold and stocks and things, and that's where your
• 5:44
  S1: criminal gangs are getting into it. So tell us about
• 5:47
  S1: why criminals have cottoned on to Lego beyond the fact
• 5:50
  S1: that they just, you know, keep their value relative to
• 5:53
  S1: other items.
• 5:54
  S3: With so many other products at this price point or
• 5:57
  S3: the higher price point and beyond, they have serial numbers
• 5:59
  S3: on them. Right? You can track a watch. You can
• 6:01
  S3: track like a stereo system. Lego has no no serial numbers.
• 6:05
  S3: They're effectively they're untraceable. Even in its original packaging never opened.
• 6:11
  S3: The box itself can't be traced. At best, the police
• 6:13
  S3: can trace back to a batch that was on a
• 6:16
  S3: pallet that left a factory at this particular time. So
• 6:18
  S3: if you steal ten sets of a particular type of
• 6:21
  S3: Lego Star Wars Lego, they can't ever prove that you
• 6:24
  S3: stole that unless they catch you red handed. But also,
• 6:28
  S3: there's a whole subset of Lego that appreciates in value
• 6:31
  S3: and sometimes dramatically appreciates in value. And that can be
• 6:34
  S3: the big sets, and it can be the small sets
• 6:36
  S3: and it tastes change as well. Like apparently Star Wars
• 6:39
  S3: was big for a while. It's not anymore. Now it's Ninjago.
• 6:42
  S3: Sometimes it's Disney. Sometimes it's like the specialty ones that
• 6:45
  S3: look like flowers. It moves all over the place. But
• 6:48
  S3: at the end of the day, like there's just constant
• 6:51
  S3: demand for it.
• 6:56
  S1: After the break.
• 6:57
  S3: There was a case last year or year before last
• 7:00
  S3: where men went into a shop during the middle of
• 7:02
  S3: the day and held the shop up with effectively with
• 7:05
  S3: a drill bit, and they threatened the owner and they
• 7:08
  S3: took the Lego and they run.
• 7:16
  S1: Okay, so this explains, you know, why, as you've written
• 7:19
  S1: in your piece, you know, some Lego in certain shops
• 7:22
  S1: is wrapped in anti-theft cables that are attached to alarms.
• 7:25
  S1: Other specialty toy shops you've put have reinforced their doors
• 7:29
  S1: and windows, and installed special metal shutters to further protect
• 7:33
  S1: their properties against RAM raids. This is crazy because we're
• 7:36
  S1: talking about Lego, but Lego has also been turning up
• 7:39
  S1: in large volumes during police raids on organised crime gangs
• 7:43
  S1: over clandestine drug labs, or millions of dollars worth of meth.
• 7:48
  S1: So tell us. Explain to us one of these situations
• 7:52
  S1: or scenes when cops are trying to bust a meth
• 7:54
  S1: gang and then what? They're coming on Lego.
• 7:56
  S3: Oh yeah. There was there was a case in Melbourne
• 7:58
  S3: a couple of years ago where they basically they found
• 8:00
  S3: a storage locker. They opened the storage locker. Inside was
• 8:03
  S3: an entire bespoke methamphetamine lab packed up, ready to be shipped.
• 8:08
  S3: And next to it was tens of thousands of dollars
• 8:10
  S3: worth of Lego. And the reason these guys end up
• 8:13
  S3: with Lego as basically collateral evidence at crime scenes. Well,
• 8:16
  S3: there's two things at work. One, they can shift it
• 8:19
  S3: pretty easy for cash. They can trade it for cash
• 8:21
  S3: or trade it for product. It's that untraceable element to it.
• 8:25
  S3: And sometimes it shows up in volumes. We're talking about
• 8:27
  S3: hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Lego, some of
• 8:29
  S3: it collectible and some of it not so. But it's
• 8:32
  S3: strange when you start to see something like this turning
• 8:34
  S3: up as collateral evidence. Like I've seen casino chips, gold bars,
• 8:39
  S3: but something like this Lego. I never would have picked
• 8:41
  S3: it when I started this.
• 8:42
  S1: And it can be violent, right? Like, like there's one
• 8:45
  S1: line in your story that was pretty scary. You wrote
• 8:47
  S1: that last year in Victoria. Lego reseller Brick Evolution was
• 8:50
  S1: targeted by a professional burglary crew. Six men in masks,
• 8:54
  S1: gloves and headlamps broke into the Cheltenham store and cleaned
• 8:58
  S1: out more than 130 sets in less than ten minutes. Like,
• 9:01
  S1: are people ever getting harmed during these thefts?
• 9:05
  S3: Fortunately, in that case, that store was robbed in the
• 9:07
  S3: middle of the night or in the very early morning.
• 9:08
  S3: There was a case last year or year before last
• 9:11
  S3: where men went into a shop during the middle of
• 9:13
  S3: the day and held the shop up with effectively with
• 9:16
  S3: a drill bit. And they threatened the owner and they
• 9:19
  S3: took the Lego and they run. Violence is pretty unusual
• 9:22
  S3: with this, although there are a lot of stores, particularly
• 9:25
  S3: the big box stores, which are not going to appreciate
• 9:28
  S3: me saying this, but the basically the standing orders, you
• 9:31
  S3: don't chase them. If they grab and run, you let
• 9:33
  S3: them go. That's what I've been told because they don't
• 9:35
  S3: want violence and confrontation.
• 9:37
  S1: And so criminals are now using Lego. Do I have
• 9:40
  S1: this right to launder dirty money and hide their assets.
• 9:43
  S1: If I've got that right, how how are they doing that?
• 9:46
  S3: It's it's stunning. Right? Because you can take $25,000 worth
• 9:50
  S3: of dirty cash and buy Lego sets and then sell
• 9:52
  S3: them quite openly on eBay or on Facebook Marketplace. But
• 9:56
  S3: you can transport them. You can store them. It's not illegal.
• 9:59
  S1: So is that how criminals are generally offloading the stolen Lego?
• 10:02
  S1: They're just selling it on eBay.
• 10:03
  S3: Uh it happens. I spent a lot of time on
• 10:05
  S3: eBay and Facebook Marketplace looking at prices and sets. And
• 10:09
  S3: so basically I went through all the big box retailers
• 10:12
  S3: and I said, well, what are these? I picked 5
• 10:13
  S3: or 6 different types of Lego. And I said, what
• 10:16
  S3: are the prices right now in a shop in the
• 10:18
  S3: northern suburbs of Melbourne, versus for that exact set, what
• 10:21
  S3: was on Facebook or Marketplace? And generally speaking, you'd see
• 10:24
  S3: the exact same set, often marketed as brand new or unopened,
• 10:29
  S3: same set, exactly the same same year, same model, just 25%, 30% lower.
• 10:35
  S3: And some of these, some of these sellers, like, why
• 10:38
  S3: would you have 14 sets of the exact same type
• 10:41
  S3: of Lego. Like it just defies belief. Why? You have
• 10:44
  S3: 14 unopened boxes of the same piece of Star Wars
• 10:47
  S3: Lego just.
• 10:48
  S1: Or just yetis, like just yetis and their environment. I mean,
• 10:52
  S1: that's the one I want, but where else in the
• 10:54
  S1: world is this happening? Because you wrote about a surprising
• 10:57
  S1: number that were happening in Australia. You know, some of them,
• 11:00
  S1: like you said, in the hundreds of thousands last month,
• 11:01
  S1: you wrote a police raid in Adelaide uncovered $320,000 worth
• 11:06
  S1: of Lego hidden in the garage of a suburban home
• 11:09
  S1: that was part of a sophisticated retail theft operation that
• 11:13
  S1: had targeted toy stores and retailers around the city. But
• 11:16
  S1: what about elsewhere in the world? Like, is this just
• 11:18
  S1: us Lego freaks in Australia? Or should I say Lego
• 11:21
  S1: thieves in Australia? Or where is it happening elsewhere?
• 11:24
  S3: It's happening everywhere. Funnily enough, after I filed this story
• 11:27
  S3: a day before it was published, there was another seizure
• 11:30
  S3: in America, which I think was worth $1 million. It's
• 11:32
  S3: happening all over the place.
• 11:34
  S1: Wait, 1.4 estimated million dollars? I mean, that is bananas.
• 11:39
  S3: It's a lot of Lego. And if you can go
• 11:41
  S3: online and see the footage from South Australia from a
• 11:44
  S3: couple of weeks ago or from last month, one of
• 11:46
  S3: the TV crews got a a drone as the police
• 11:49
  S3: were unloading it. And they go up, you know, they
• 11:51
  S3: go up in the back and you look and it's
• 11:53
  S3: it was three trailer loads that the police had to
• 11:56
  S3: haul away from that one house, 15 shipping pallets.
• 11:59
  S1: Okay. So I've got to ask, I mean, is Lego
• 12:02
  S1: the company a do they know about this? And B,
• 12:04
  S1: are they freaking out?
• 12:05
  S3: They don't like to talk about it. Nobody wants to
• 12:06
  S3: talk about it. Wesfarmers which owns Kmart and Target would
• 12:11
  S3: wouldn't talk to me about it. Woolworths who owns big
• 12:14
  S3: W wouldn't talk about Lego. Certainly wouldn't talk about it.
• 12:16
  S1: Yeah. They just don't want to be associated with robbers.
• 12:18
  S1: Is that it. And crime.
• 12:20
  S5: They just yeah. They just don't want the.
• 12:21
  S3: The brand reflection I suppose. But they wouldn't even answer
• 12:24
  S3: basic questions about how big is this issue. What are
• 12:27
  S3: the steps that are being taken? Like nobody wants to
• 12:29
  S3: talk about it.
• 12:29
  S1: So in the 90s and 2000, you had Burberry grappling
• 12:32
  S1: with the fact that they were associated with soccer hooligans
• 12:35
  S1: and now Lego.
• 12:36
  S5: Yeah. There you go.
• 12:37
  S1: A2 Lego. Okay, so I've got to ask this is
• 12:40
  S1: a random question, but in terms of global crime trends,
• 12:43
  S1: like which countries does Australia generally follow? If we do
• 12:46
  S1: like if the states had this happening with the Lego first,
• 12:49
  S1: is it just likely that we would follow?
• 12:51
  S5: Well, look.
• 12:51
  S3: 20 years ago, before the widespread internet and social media
• 12:54
  S3: and all the rest of it, countries did tend to
• 12:56
  S3: to learn from each other. It's less so now because
• 12:58
  S3: you can see things instantaneously, right? Like I was talking
• 13:02
  S3: before about, um, there's a famous case in Australia about
• 13:05
  S3: smuggling ecstasy inside tomato tins. It was known as the
• 13:08
  S3: tomato tins case. It was the world's largest ecstasy bust
• 13:10
  S3: at the time. I didn't know until I went on
• 13:12
  S3: a holiday to Las Vegas a couple years later. That
• 13:15
  S3: idea was actually stolen from an idea the New York
• 13:18
  S3: Mafia had done in the 70s, which was putting heroin
• 13:20
  S3: into tins. Um, you know, everything old is new again.
• 13:24
  S3: And in some ways we're market leaders in retail theft.
• 13:26
  S3: Like if you look at the statistics for general retail
• 13:29
  S3: theft in Australia, it's off the charts in the last
• 13:31
  S3: two years, which is interesting because for a while it
• 13:34
  S3: was going down. Now it's just through the roof.
• 13:37
  S1: But that dovetails with the cost of living crisis. Right? Right. Okay.
• 13:41
  S1: And so just to wrap up, Chris, I've got to
• 13:43
  S1: ask you, like, are you now looking at your kid's
• 13:45
  S1: Lego stash with a slightly different eye? Are you just
• 13:47
  S1: looking at those, you know, those builder figures, you know,
• 13:51
  S1: with their adorable little, like, briefcases and like. MM.
• 13:55
  S3: I'm definitely making sure they don't get sucked up in
• 13:56
  S3: a vacuum cleaner or eaten by the dog.
• 14:00
  S1: Well, I tell you what, it's such an interesting read.
• 14:02
  S1: So thank you, Chris, as always for your time. Today's
• 14:13
  S1: episode was produced by Josh towers. Our executive producer is
• 14:17
  S1: Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy
• 14:21
  S1: and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow The
• 14:24
  S1: Morning Edition and leave a review for us on Apple
• 14:27
  S1: or Spotify. Thanks for listening.