Dozens of packing containers of the favored Labubu toy totaling round $7,000 had been stolen from a retailer in La Puente, California, this week, in keeping with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division.
The housebreaking occurred round 1:29 a.m. on Aug. 6 at One Cease Gross sales, a retailer identified for its Labubu dolls and equipment.
“We labored so arduous to get up to now, [only] for them simply to come back in and like nothing take all of it away,” Joanna Avendano, co-owner of One Cease Gross sales, advised native ABC station KABC-TV on Thursday.
The store has since posted surveillance footage of the incident on social media. One video reveals at the very least 4 masked individuals breaking into the shop, ransacking cabinets and fleeing with packing containers of merchandise.
The house owners of One Cease Gross sales in La Puente, California, shared video on Instagram of a theft at their retailer on Aug. 6, 2025.
@onestopsaless/Instagram
Avendano additionally shared pictures of the aftermath, displaying shattered glass on the entrance and scattered merchandise on the ground.
Deputies advised ABC Information Thursday that the suspects stay at massive however they’ve recovered the stolen white Toyota Tacoma used within the crime.
Labubus, which debuted in China in 2015, have exploded in international recognition, noticed on celebrities like Rihanna, Lizzo, and BLACKPINK’s Lisa and rising right into a billion-dollar trade.
Income for Pop Mart, the Chinese language designer toy firm behind Labubus, doubled in 2024, reaching $1.8 billion, in keeping with Pop Mart’s annual monetary report. Whereas the doll retails for about $30, they’ll go for tons of and typically even hundreds of {dollars} on the resale market.
On social media, movies present crowds packing retailer entrances and pop-ups, lining up for an opportunity to attain a field.
On this June 12, 2025, file photograph, Labubus are proven throughout a avenue type vogue photograph session in Paris.
Edward Berthelot/Getty Photographs, FILE
Alex DePaoli, an affiliate educating professor of promoting at Northeastern College’s College of Enterprise, advised ABC Information that a part of the Labubu enchantment comes from their marketed rarity and the best way they’re offered via a “blind field” system.
“[It’s a] system primarily the place you do not know what’s within the field, you hope that what’s within the field is what you need,” DePaoli stated in an interview that aired Friday on “Good Morning America.” “If you do not get what you need, you have to go purchase one other one. A number of of us have type of likened that sort-of system to virtually playing.”
The marketplace for Labubus has turn out to be so standard that some shoppers are turning to counterfeit alternate options known as “Lafufus,” that are made with lower-quality supplies and should have completely different options than genuine Labubus.
“They don’t seem to be simply toys, they’re equipment,” DePaolis stated of the Labubu craze. “They’re issues that you may acquire, not simply to decorate them up, not simply be amused by, but additionally to finish an outfit.”
