Two booked for $400,000 Lego theft ring

SMITH COUNTY– Our news partner, KETK, reports that Smith County Jail records have revealed that two men have been charged for allegedly stealing Legos from several stores across several states and in East Texas.

An arrest affidavit alleged that Brian Fleming and Shane Joel Gentry, both of Lancaster, took part in a theft ring which stole from several Walmart and Target stores in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania Florida and Texas, including stores in Longview, Tyler, Kilgore and Gun Barrel City.

A Department of Public Safety trooper first noticed 19 new Cricut electronic cutting machines sitting in the back of a vehicle during a traffic stop in October of 2022, according to the affidavit.
The driver of that vehicle was arrested for an unrelated warrant and the machines were ultimately traced back to the Walmart that they were allegedly stolen from and a search warrant was reportedly obtained for the driver’s phone. Gentry was allegedly texting that driver in order to buy the Cricut machines at a low price, the affidavit said.

An investigation then discovered that Gentry was allegedly selling the items on eBay and Amazon. According to an arrest affidavit for Fleming, Gentry had provided Amazon with several invoices for items from Fleming. He and another man were reportedly caught on video in a Walmart Lego aisle before they went and bought several low cost items, according to Fleming’s arrest affidavit.

Fleming would then leave the store and several others involved in the ring would come in and pick out the same amount of items that Fleming had bought but from the Lego aisle. According to the affidavit, they would then leave the store without purchasing the Legos and would present an altered version of Fleming’s original receipt if stopped. The receipt would reportedly be altered to list the Legos and the correct prices of those Legos even though the SKU number listed was still for the original items purchased by Fleming, an affidavit showed. Between the Walmart and Target stores, the affidavit alleges that more than $400,000 in products were stolen this way.

Fleming and Gentry were both charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and theft of property over $300,000. Fleming was booked on Dec. 06 and is currently being held in the Smith County Jail on a total bond of $1,100,000. Gentry was booked into Smith County Jail on Nov. 21 and was released on Nov. 22.