Last week, two women showed up with a van to pick up the donations from the Toys for Tots bin at the volunteer fire department in a Virginia town. There’s nothing sinister about that, except that the women weren’t affiliated with Toys For Tots. Who were they? No one knows.

Police certainly would like to know. The area’s actual coordinator told TV station WTKR that many of the stolen gifts were “big-ticket items” that would have been kids’ major gifts of the season. Monday night, she worried that the toys might run out before every family in need stopped by.

“All they needed to do was ask for them, and we would have given them toys to meet their needs,” she said of the thieves.

The organization suspects that toys might have been stolen from other bins in the area, too.

Toys for Tots donation box stolen from Smithfield fire station [WTKR]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.