Woman arrested in connection to $400,000 Lego theft ring

SMITH COUNTY – A third person has been charged in connection to a multi-state Lego theft ring that allegedly stole more than $400,000 worth of products including from several stores in East Texas.

According to our news partner KETK, Semetric Danielle Baker of Burnet, TX, was arrested by the Smith County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday. Her arrest comes after two other people were arrested in 2024 for alleged thefts from several Walmart and Target stores in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Florida and Texas, including stores in Longview, Tyler, Kilgore and Gun Barrel City.

The two other people accused are Brian Fleming who was arrested on Dec. 6 and Shane Joel Gentry who was arrested on Nov. 21. Gentry would reportedly sell items on eBay and Amazon and, according to an arrest affidavit, he showed Amazon an invoice for the items from Fleming.

Fleming and another man were reportedly caught on video in a Walmart Lego aisle before they left that aisle and bought several low cost items, an arrest affidavit for Fleming said.

When Fleming would leave the store, other members of the ring, including Baker, would come in and pick out the same amount of items that Fleming had bought but from the Lego aisle. They would then leave the store without purchasing the Legos and would present an altered version of Fleming’s original receipt if stopped, Baker’s affidavit said.

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.

Fleming and Baker’s affidavits say that more than $400,000 in products were stolen this way.

Baker was charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and theft of property greater than $300,000. She’s being held in the Smith County Jail on a total bond of $1,100,000.