A Bend man arrested earlier in the week was arrested a second time for trying to sell hundreds of dollars worth of allegedly stolen Lego sets online, said the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team, Friday evening.
On Tuesday, CODE detectives said they arrested Wyatt Froome during an alleged drug sale. During his earlier arrest, detectives located $750 worth of Lego toy sets allegedly stolen from the Bend Target store earlier the same day by Froome and his accomplice, Timothy Henkel, both Bend area transients.
CODE detectives say, on Friday, they were monitoring public social media marketplaces for criminal activity when they noticed Mr. Froome was online and offering to sell hundreds of dollars worth of new Lego sets at a deep discount. Detectives contacted Froome with an offer to purchase the Legos on display and a deal was made with arrangements to meet.
Later that day, Froome arrived at the Bend Outlet Mall where uniformed Bend Police Officers contacted him while he had the stolen property he agreed to sell to the online detective, CODE said.
It is alleged Froome “pre-sells” the Lego sets on social media platforms, CODE detectives said. Once an interested party contacts him, Froome allegedly “fulfills the order” by stealing the same Lego set from a local retailer.
According to area retail store security officers, Legos are a hot item due to their popularity and relative cost from retail markets. Legos are virtually untraceable, without serial numbers, and quickly sold on the black market or to unsuspecting buyers on social media.
During the investigations, CODE detectives charged Froome with four additional Bend area thefts totaling over $3,000 of stolen property and he was lodged in the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Jail on charges of first and second degree theft, aggravated identity theft and fraudulent use of a credit card.
