Deputies say the three pounds of meth is worth about $40,000. (CNN) — Three Georgia women stopped at a consignment shop in South Carolina and ended up purchasing a LEGO box, only to discover it was filled with three pounds of methamphetamine. The women gave the box to a child who opened it and found $40,000 worth of drugs, said Jim Riggs, an investigator with the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office, CNN affiliate WSB reported. The women called the sheriff’s office. Deputies said on their Facebook page they collected the meth and called the Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA said the box could have been purchased in a storage auction before making its way to the consignment store without anyone questioning its contents. Riggs said dealers send drugs to empty or abandoned addresses to be picked up, but the US Postal Service won’t leave the packages, so they are sometimes left with a neighbor or auctioned. Deputies said no charges were filed in this case.<doc-sep>Investigators with the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia said a child found something other than a messy pile of colorful plastic bits in a gift from his mom. She discovered 3.2 pounds of methamphetamine -- street value, $40,000 -- tucked into what appeared to be an ordinary box of Legos. Investigator Jim Riggs with the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office told Fox News that a Statesboro, Ga., mother and a couple of her friends drove for about two hours to Charleston, S.C., where they bought the Legos from a consignment shop. He said when the women returned from the trip and the mother gave her child the toy, there were no Legos to be found inside the container. What there was, however, was a "big bag of meth." “The methamphetamine inside of the box was vacuum sealed, and that keeps it from moving around too much and also helps mask the smell,” said Riggs. He said this was the first time his office had made such a find, “especially in this quantity.” “On top of the box itself, the Lego box was shrink-wrapped, which is the typical wrapping you find on a toy box or something coming from the factory,” Riggs said. “It was professionally done. It looked like you went to a regular retail store and purchased the box.” ALABAMA MAN TASED AFTER TRYING TO EAT BAG OF METH FOLLOWING POLICE CHASE He added, “Somebody took the time to cover the tracks, most definitely.” Riggs told Fox News the child’s father called the sheriff’s office and told deputies he suspected the box contained illicit drugs. Riggs said that once the sheriff’s office “field tested” the substance, the results came back positive for meth. The office then contacted the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Charleston, and it was determined that the consignment shop was itself not involved. Riggs said the owner of the consignment shop told authorities the person who sold her the Legos said they'd been bought at a local auction. Authorities suspect the package "was delivered to an address, probably a false address, or an abandoned house,” Riggs said. Riggs said he thinks that “when a mailman got there and determined it was a false address he took it back with him and put it in a pile of undelivered mail and a lot of times those items are put up for auction if there’s no way to return those items.” ALYSSA MILANO, 49 CELEBRITIES THREATEN GEORGIA WITH 'LOSS OF BILLIONS' OVER NEW ABORTION BILL Riggs said the women who bought the toy box were fortunate they did not encounter law enforcement on their two-hour drive back to Georgia. “If the ladies would have been stopped on their way from Charleston to Statesboro by law enforcement, and the methamphetamine would have been found, there would have been a lot of explaining to do. It would have been a bad scene,” Riggs said. As it stands, the mom, her friends and the consignment shop owner have all cooperated with the investigation. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP And an actual culprit? “It would be near impossible to find who did this,” Riggs said, adding that “no charges have been filed at this time.”<doc-sep>
An unsuspecting group of Georgia women and a child were in for a surprise when they opened a Lego box purchased at a South Carolina shop and found a large bag of meth, police say. The Bulloch County Sheriff's Office said a "citizen reported to the Sheriff's Office that they purchased a box of Legos at a consignment shop in South Carolina," the office wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday. "Upon returning home and opening the box they discovered the box contained a quantity of methamphetamine instead of Legos," the office wrote. Bulloch County sheriff’s Investigator Jim Riggs told the Statesboro Herald that three women bought what they thought was a toy but actually contained about three pounds of methamphetamine worth $40,000. "They took it and gave it to a young child, who opened the box" Riggs told the newspaper. The child was likely very disappointed, he added. The Sheriff's Office then contacted the Drug Enforcement Administration, which said the box might have been purchased in an auction before making it the consignment shop. More:Frozen strawberry shipment from Mexico contained $12.7 million worth of meth, authorities say Riggs told the Herald that when drug dealers try to send illicit packages through the mail, they often pick abandoned addresses, hoping someone can pick up the contraband. However, the postal service doesn't always deliver to these vacant places and instead can hold auctions, "sort of like 'Storage Wars,'" for the unclaimed mail, he added. Follow USA TODAY's Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller