Memorial Day thieves steal 30,000 condoms
- A pair of thieves in Las Vegas broke into a Lelo warehouse Friday night, escaping with tens of thousands of condoms.
- The next morning, two men presumed to be the same thieves broke in and stole more than $10,000 worth of sex toys.
- Lelo's products can be found in mainstream stores like Brookstone, and its approach to making premium-priced adult novelties is part of the reason the industry has seen sales surge over the past 10 years.
A pair of thieves in Las Vegas seemingly had some big plans for the holiday weekend, breaking into a warehouse twice — and escaping with tens of thousands of condoms and over $10,000 worth of sex toys.
The two-part heist began Friday evening. Lelo, the sex toy company that was the victim of the robbery, had closed its warehouse early for the long weekend, leaving it empty.
At about 7:45 p.m., the security cameras captured two men entering through a back gate and walking away with two shipping boxes filled with the company's Lelo Hex condoms. Each box, says the company, contained 15,120 individually wrapped condoms.
That must not have been quite enough, though, as the thieves then returned to grab a few more 36-packs of the condoms before leaving. (The retail value of the heist is difficult to determine because the condoms were individually wrapped, but a 36-pack normally retails for $35.)
"The dumbest part of this?" the company in a harshly worded blog post detailing the robbery. "In a few days, we're about to give away thousands of Hex condoms for free anyway. They could have just waited and asked for them like everyone else."
It gets weirder.
The following day, May 27, at 10:30 a.m., a rental car rammed through the loading dock of the warehouse, and a man grabbed three large boxes of sex toys and threw them into the back of the car before running to the passenger side of the vehicle. (It's unclear if it was the same duo as the previous night, but the company is operating under the assumption it was.)
Among the items taken? A box of 33 prostate massagers and 48 Kegel exercising aids. (The contents of the third box were not disclosed.)
In both instances, Las Vegas police arrived after the thieves had left the premises.
Lelo is asking for the public's help in identifying the criminals and in finding its stolen property, but it has also acknowledged the ridiculous nature of the crime.
"What kind of party are these people having?" it asked in its blog post, tongue firmly in cheek. "We could have done the sponsorship or something. A invite might have been nice."
Lelo's U.S. president, , in a more serious note, called the raids "shocking," but said the difficulty in getting additional security around the Memorial Day holiday was likely a factor in the act.
Officials at the Las Vegas Police Department confirmed to CNBC that two burglary reports were taken at the warehouse on the dates the company said the incidents took place. The cases remain under investigation.
Lelo is one of the sex toy industry's higher-end manufacturers. Its products can be found in mainstream retail stores like Brookstone, and its approach to making premium-priced adult novelties with higher-quality materials is part of the reason the industry has seen sales surge over the past 10 years.