A San Marcos couple who confessed on national TV last year to being "professional shoplifters" are not the only ones making a living from crime, according to retail industry and law enforcement experts.

"Especially when we're dealing with organized theft, the majority goes undetected by retail stores and law enforcement -- and more people get away than get caught," said Joe LaRocca, senior asset protection advisor with the National Retail Federation, a trade association.

Local investigators turned their attention to Laura and Matthew Eaton in the summer of 2008, when the couple was suspected of stealing a single Lego brand toy from the Target store in Vista.

Now the pair are suspected of a breed of theft that industry experts and law enforcement officials believe deprives retailers of between $15 billion and $30 billion a year. Those figures don't include the increased costs to consumers and loss of state sales tax revenues.

The pair has not been arrested or charged with any crime and their attorneys have not returned calls for comment.

So-called organized retail theft has the attention of lawmakers. Three bills targeting the issue are before Congress and a few states already have their own legislation.

Earlier this year, California state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, announced plans for proposed changes to the state's law about grand theft, with the goal of giving "greater tools" to investigators and prosecutors pursuing organized shoplifting. Thefts valued at more than $400 are considered grand theft.

Yee became vocal about the issue in 2008, after authorities busted what they said was a multimillion-dollar shoplifting ring based in San Jose.

The Eaton case from Vista was still a work in progress when the couple appeared in a November 2008 "sweeps" episode of the talk show "Dr. Phil."

In the show, the couple discussed their lives as "professional shoplifters" who made trips with their children across state lines to avoid being recognized at stores in Southern California. In the show, Laura Eaton said she and her husband made about $100,000 per year by shoplifting.

They often stole Lego toys that they later sold on the Internet auction site eBay.com, they said.

Their television appearance led to a federal search warrant that was served one month ago at the couple's Leslie Court address, officials said.

Shoplifting isn't often made into a federal case, but under the right circumstances it can be -- as in the case of a man dubbed "The Lego Bandit."

William Swanberg, a Reno resident at the time, made national headlines in 2005 when he was accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Lego toys, reselling them on the Internet and shipping the fenced toys via the U.S. Postal Service.

According to Postal Inspector Tom Brucklacher, who led the Swanberg investigation, federal authorities had jurisdiction because Swanberg's customers did not know they were buying stolen goods and because Swanberg used electronic communication and the Postal Service to run the illegitimate business.

Swanberg was charged with six counts of wire fraud and six counts of mail fraud; he was sentenced in 2006 to 13 months in prison as part of a plea deal.

Brucklacher said consumers need to be aware that the Internet is rife with ill-gotten goods being sold below retail prices.

"If it sounds to good to be true, it is," Brucklacher said. "They have to wonder, how can someone make a living like that when the distributors won't even sell (an item) for that price? Why would this guy be able to make profit?"

Though skilled shoplifters can make a profit, sometimes for months or even years, there is always the possibility that authorities will catch up to them, LaRocca said.

"Sometime we see it though the efforts of loss prevention professionals and law enforcement, and sometimes we see it as a result of the criminals' own stupidity," he said. "We all make mistakes in our jobs. The risk for them is that if they make a mistake, they can get caught."

Contact staff writer Colleen Mensching at (760) 739-6675 or cmensching@nctimes.com.