Stealing someone’s toys is never cool, no matter the toy or age of the owner.

But that didn’t stop the cold-hearted thugs who walked away with $7K worth of Legos that Brian Richards of Grandville, Michigan, had been collecting for thirty-plus years, beginning at age five.

While he, his wife, and two kids were sleeping, thieves broke into his house and cleaned out a basement office filled with assembled, partially assembled, and bin-sorted Lego blocks and figures. Gone was the Ghostbusters building, the Disney Castle, the Mini Cooper, and the DeLorean time machine. The bandits ignored computers, expensive camera equipment, power tools. They only grabbed the stuff Richards really cared about.

The heist was so crisply executed — a lot of loot, neatly gathered, and stealthily transported up a flight of stairs — it’s like that duffel-bag-toting crew from Heat come to life, except instead of grabbing money stacks it was colored plastic mini-bricks.

Turns out Lego jobs are mighty tempting to the larcenous.

In 2012, a master shoplifter from Florida nabbed so much store merch police estimate he made an insane $2M reselling the goods. And in May of last year a guy from Sydney, Australia, came away with $8,500 worth of boosted Legos.

About the only bright spot in this toy story is that the robbers didn’t touch the folders of instruction manuals. So if the stuff ever turns up, the castle, etc., can rise again. And if the thieves are caught? How about a perp-walk in bare feet down a sidewalk littered with random Lego bricks. Cruel and unusual? Maybe. But they stole a man’s Legos!