Thomas Langenbach, Silicon Valley tech executive, arrested in Lego toy bar code scheme

By: Crimesider Staff
Topics: Caught on Tape ,; Daily Blotter ,; Cybercrime

Lego toy building bricks. Langenbach allegedly sold his discounted Legos on Ebay.

/ Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

(CBS/AP) San Jose, Calif. - Thomas Langenbach, a Silicon Valley tech executive, now faces charges after authorities say he put fake bar codes on hundreds of Lego sets at various Target stores so he could buy the toys at steeply discounted prices. He then sold them online for thousands of dollars in profits.

Langenbach, 47, was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday on four counts of burglary.

Authorities say Langenbach covered over the original bar codes with his own bar-code stickers to get a cheaper price.

Investigators found hundreds of Lego sets at his posh San Carlos home and learned he made thousands of dollars selling the pilfered sets of colorful toy bricks on eBay under the name "tomsbrickyard."

Langenbach was found with eight baggies of bar code stickers were found in his car, police said.

He was already under surveillance by Target security officers who suspected him of the scheme when they spotted him at the chain's store in Mountain View on May 8. After he completed his purchases using the bogus bar codes, the store called the police. Langenbach was then arrested, authorities said.

"They had recognized him when he walked in the store and had seen him on camera actually sticking bar-code stickers on to items," Mountain View police spokeswoman Liz Wylie told KNTV-TV.

Langenbach works for German software giant SAP. His LinkedIn profile lists him as a vice president in a Northern California division. Attempts to reach Langenbach, who is free on bail, were unsuccessful.

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by donottrustdems May 23, 2012 12:57 PM EDT: I guess it's true, the more you have the more you want.; Reply to this comment


by hypnotoad72 May 23, 2012 12:48 PM EDT: Yup. Workers must be watched night and day because they're overpaid and unethical...

Yet these management slimeballs try to get away with far more.

What a wonderful country we live in...; Reply to this comment

by lesserof2evil May 23, 2012 12:07 PM EDT

Wait, but he's a job creator. That's why we need to cut he taxes so he can create jobs without stealing.

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by hypnotoad72 May 23, 2012 12:53 PM EDT: :)

by rwsmith29456 May 23, 2012 10:57 AM EDT

He doesn't make enough money as a company executive??

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by hypnotoad72 May 23, 2012 12:52 PM EDT: Just whittle down worker wages and pocket the rest as profit. All is resolved... (Well, until everybody pulls the same tactics and as a result nobody can spend anymore... but nobody in the media seems to point out that aspect and continues to ask "Why there's no recovery" and other sawdust-filled fluffpieces...


by FoolKiller May 23, 2012 10:09 AM EDT: Didn't someone else do exactly the same thing a few years ago, only at ToysRus??? I know I heard almost the exact story some time ago.; Reply to this comment

by DustinDopps May 22, 2012 6:24 PM EDT

Have you ever bought Legos? They are waaay overpriced. I'm not surprised someone decided to sell them in the gray market.

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by nojoy01 May 23, 2012 7:26 AM EDT: "They are waaay overpriced."
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DustinDopps, lots & lots of them are being sold at their "sticker price" which means, in our economic system, that they are not "waaay overpriced". If you personally consider them to be overpriced, then don't buy any. Now, if you want an example of something that was "waaay overpriced" try the Facebook IPO price of $38 per share. It hasn't hit bottom yet & probably won't until it's in the mid twenties somewhere.


by matt6052 May 23, 2012 10:09 AM EDT: yeah gray-market is when the warranty isn't valid
black market is when the stuff is stolen

not sure what sort of a warranty would go with a lego product anyway

they tend to be very durable though-- play with them a thousand times and they still snap together and apart as if new


by hypnotoad72 May 23, 2012 12:52 PM EDT: There are competitors whose plastic bricks are just as good.

LEGO Corp has the clout to license big brand properties such as the Millennium Falcon but if one prefers to build original creations, any plastic brick set will work wonders.

nojoy01 -

Amusing: you claim something isn't overpriced but use the same methodology to say something else is overpriced (personal opinion).

Of course, if nobody buys then the company goes under because there's no demand. Or they will demand bailouts on top of their usual taxpayer-funded handouts because they're oh-so-more important than the people whose taxes bail them out, purportedly...


by thewatcherone May 22, 2012 5:56 PM EDT: Well thousands and thousands of dollars equals many felonies and felonies so I imagine, or in this case it being a rich person, I hope prison is in this person's future. Is Langenbach even a natural citizen? If not deport him after he serves his time and pays back what he owes. What a disgusting level of greed. It's not a syndrome or disease, if it was he wouldn't have sold them online for profit and make up all those bar codes, it's a crime. So let's hope he gets what's coming to him. No matter how mundane this story is.; Reply to this comment