An executive at business applications vendor SAP has been charged in the US with printing out his own barcodes and sticking them onto Lego sets in stores to buy them at a discount.

Thomas Langenbach, vice president for SAP’s Integration and Certification in Palo Alto, California, was arrested earlier this month, NBC Bay Area reports.

Lagenbach, a 24-year SAP veteran, was charged with the burglary of seven boxes of Lego, worth about $1,000, from retail chain Target. He is alleged to have sold 2,100 Lego items on eBay since last April, totalling $30,000.

Barcode fraud is not an uncommon crime. "This probably happens more than you think," a police spokesperson told NBC Bay Area.

In 2005, four people were charged with defrauding US retail giant WalMart of up to $1.5 million using a similar technique over the course of a decade.

In 2008, a man was convicted in the US of earning more than $1 million by using fake barcodes to buy merchandise and selling it online.