Very Strange Theft: 4.5 Million Stolen Bees and Other Bizarre Heists

All things considered, 2020 was a bizarre year, and these bizarre thefts certainly underline that. In 2020, for example, 4.5 million bees were stolen in America, more than three thousand kilos of chickpeas were pinched, and a truckload of whiskey was stolen. What?!?

Scanning groceries incorrectly could be called a food-related crime. Stealing glasses or ashtrays from a bar is the same. But surely these kinds of bizarre thefts and break-ins don’t happen in the Netherlands? Fortunately, Food & Wine magazine put together a list of some very strange crimes.

92 beehives, containing approximately 4.5 million bees in total

In California, 92 beehives were stolen. At the beginning of 2020, a beekeeper reported the theft of all his beehives, complete with approximately 4.5 million bees. In terms of investment, the beekeeper was about 44,000 dollars poorer. What a strange theft: how do you even take those buzzing, humming hives with you? And where do you take them?

Burglar takes a wheel of cheese

A wheel of cheese—that’s what you call a large, round cheese like the ones you sometimes see at the market. In America, a shoplifter was arrested after stealing one of these enormous things. Hidden under his coat? Slipped into a backpack? After his arrest, the shoplifter confessed that he had hidden in the supermarket’s stockroom for weeks. And cheese wasn’t the only thing he took: he had also done some good old-fashioned shopping in the drinks aisle and taken cartons of cigarettes.

Digging to the wine cellar

Criminals digging a tunnel—you know it from Donald Duck and Netflix series about drug cartels. But it really happens! In Denmark, thieves dug a tunnel that came out exactly in the wine cellar of Michelin-starred restaurant Formel B. They managed to steal fifty to sixty bottles of wine before they were caught. Notably, they hadn’t touched the most expensive bottles.

Hummus gone missing

Packages sometimes get lost in the mail, especially when things are as busy as they are now, during the coronavirus pandemic. But an entire order of chickpeas disappearing off the map is rare. An Israeli restaurant in Washington had to do without its order of more than three thousand kilos of chickpeas. Fortunately, the order was delivered to the restaurant weeks later after all. How could that happen? Nobody knows, and the restaurant owner says he didn’t ask either.

Getting a doughnut with an axe

A fan of Voodoo Doughnuts, a popular doughnut shop in Oregon, entered the restaurant waving an axe. He jumped over the counter and put all kinds of delicious doughnuts into a box for himself. A few streets away, the police were able to arrest him: he was in the middle of eating a doughnut.

Very thirsty, very large vehicle

You can rob the liquor store, or you can take a smarter approach: rob the truck that supplies the liquor store. One clever fellow climbed into a truck loaded with Jack Daniels and drove it out of the distribution center. A few days later, the stolen truck was found, but a large part of the cargo had already disappeared…

Tomato stolen

After a few years, Italian restaurant East Side Mario in Ontario got a stolen tomato back. Huh? It wasn’t a real beefsteak tomato, but a large plastic tomato that stood in the restaurant as decoration. The owners of the Italian restaurant heard that their tomato had been spotted at a landfill. Sure enough, there it was! Damaged? Not at all—it could simply be put back in the restaurant.

Illegal nuts

Criminals pretended to be a transport company, climbed into a truck packed with pistachios, and drove away. Value: more than 300,000 dollars. The plan was to sell the nuts illegally, but unfortunately for the crooks, pretty much every truck has a GPS tracker, so the stolen nuts were quickly found again.

Harvested in advance

The grapes belonging to winemaker Michel Robert of Coteau Rougemont in Quebec were perfect—it was time to harvest. But when he got to the vineyard, it turned out that this was no longer necessary: around a thousand kilos of grapes had been stolen from the vines the night before. He suspects it was probably someone who wants to make wine in their garage. And he is calling on people in the area: if someone has some really delicious homemade wine but can’t explain where the grapes came from, then you know enough.

Crime? It’ll make you hungry

A burglar got so hungry during a break-in at a pizzeria in Fullerton, California, that he took a moment to make himself a pizza. He took the contents of all the cash registers and, pizza in his belly, made his getaway in one of the cars the pizzeria uses for deliveries. He was arrested three days later after all.

Irresistible pasta

The wine, spirits, iPad and speakers: all the valuable items were still there after a break-in at restaurant Borsalia in New York. So what did the burglars take? Almost 8 kilos of fresh pasta. The break-in took place on Christmas Eve—could the pasta have been intended for Christmas dinner?

Read also:

• Shoplifters cut balaclavas out of watermelon
• 5x food wars: WHO invented hummus?
• It’s clear: this is what you steal most in the hospitality industry

Source: Food and Wine