231 The Big Heist

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Just Cheesy the podcast,presented by Just Cheesy Productions.
Hi, there. I'm your host, Fondue.
And I'm Cheesy.
We're gonna talk about allkinds of stolen foods. We're talking
about Kit Kat, maple syrup,Nutella. Yep. And even cheese. We're
gonna find out the top fooditems stolen in the world.

(00:24):
We are.
And of course, we're gonnatell a very cheesy joke.
I love a joke.
Stay tuned for the big heiston Just Cheesy the podcast. It's
time for my favorite segment.There is an ongoing saga. According
to Forbes and CBS News, InMarch of 2026, a truck carrying 413,793

(00:51):
KitKat bars, or 12 tons ofchocolate vanished when traveling
from a factory in centralItaly to Poland.
The whole truckload?
Yeah, the whole truck. Thewhole truck of Kit Kats is missing.
No one knows where it is. Asof this recording, they don't. Now,
I did wonder why they wouldsteal a whole entire truck of Kit

(01:13):
Kat bars. These ones arespecial. These are the new Formula
One line KitKat bars. They areshaped like a car. They are so cool.
Looking so cool. Now I can seemaybe taking one or two. I really
can't. I don't think youshould steal, but if you're gonna
take one or two, fine. But awhole truckload? How do you unload
that? Where does it go? Whatdo you do with that much K? KitKat?

(01:34):
What do you do?
KitKat's official responsewas. And I want to read this carefully,
they said, we've alwaysencouraged people to have a break
with KitKat, but it seemsthieves have taken the message too
literally. Yeah, that's thecorporate statement from Time magazine.
According to multiple newsoutlets, the company has started
to lean into it a little bit.

(01:54):
They have.
Nestle has launched whatthey're calling the stolen KitKat
tracker. It's a tool that letsanyone scan the batch code on their
KitKat bar to check if it camefrom the missing shipment.
That's cool.
Yeah. They're essentiallycrowdsourcing finding the KitKats.
They are.
And for those of you thinking,well, maybe this was an April Fool's
joke, I don't think so. Theirofficial Instagram has a statement

(02:16):
that says they really were stolen.
Whoa.

(03:10):
According to Dexerdo.comKitKat Canada responded by escorting
their delivery trucks withfull black SUV security convoys.
They also posted a hiringnotice seeking, and I'm quoting,
professional security guardswith big break energy. KitKat and
their big Break Energy is nota sponsor. But if they were the ad

(03:31):
would go right here. Nowhere's the thing about the story
of the KitKats. This heist,it's not an anomaly. It's not food
cargo theft is a massive andgrowing global problem. And cheese,
our beloved cheese, it's rightat the center of it. According to
Time magazine, cheese is themost stolen food on earth.
On earth.
Global food fraud,specifically adulteration mislabeling

(03:54):
cargo theft is estimated at 30to $50 billion annually by the World
Trade Organization. Accordingto Culture cheese mag, in 1928 there
was a group of three mencalled the Brooklyn Cheese Bandits.
These guys confessed to 25deli robberies in two months.
Holy cow.
They weren't called the CheeseBandits because they stole the cheese.

(04:17):
They weren't.
They were called the CheeseBandits because they ate cheese while
robb. Robbing the delis in2013 in cash in Wisconsin, a man
walked into a K and K cheesewith forged paperwork and he drove
away with a truck containing21 tons of Munster cheese. This was
valued at $200,000. He wasarrested a thousand miles away on

(04:41):
the New Jersey Turnpike whenpolice spotted the truck. In 2015,
an 11 member gang in Modena,the heart of Parmigiano Reggiano
country, used sophisticatedelectronics to bypass warehouse alarm
Systems and stole 2,039 wheelsof Parmesan over two years.
Holy cow.
The value, $875,000 over twoyears. And this is likely one of

(05:08):
the reasons why an estimated300,000 wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano
worth around $200 million arecurrently stored in Italian bank
vaults. And we've talked aboutthis. One Italian bank actually accepts
Parmesan wheels as collateralon loans. In October of 2024, according
to Al Jazeera, some con menposed as reps of a respected French

(05:31):
distributor. They contactedNeil's Yard Dairy, one of London's
most celebrated artisan cheeseshops. They meticulously crafted
paperwork. They had anextensive knowledge of the industry.
They talked Neil's Yard intohanding over 950, 50 wheels of award
winning cloth bound cheddar,22 tons worth £300,000. In fact,

(05:57):
according to the Week,celebrity chef Jamie Oliver immediately
alerted his 10 and a halfmillion Instagram followers to watch
for in his words, lorry loadsof posh cheese being sold for cheap.
Most of the cheese has stillnot been found.
Of course not.
Of course it hasn't. It's beeneaten right. According to the cheeseprofessor.com

(06:18):
documented by the globalretail theft barometer, cheese is
the most stolen Food itemoverall, yeah. However, there are
others. Fresh meat, chocolate,alcohol, seafood, baby formula, and
coffee are stolen in roughlythat order, depending on the country.
I've got some examples.Between 2011 and 2012, thieves in

(06:39):
Quebec pulled off what becameknown as the great Canadian Maple
Syrup heist. According toWikipedia, they stole nearly 3,000
tons of maple syrup fromQuebec's global Strategic Maple Syrup
Reserve.
That's real.
Yeah, that's a real thing thatexists. They replaced the syrup in
industrial barrels with waterso the theft wouldn't be detective.

(07:00):
During routine checks, thevalue, $18.7 million.
Holy cow.
At the time, maple syrup wasworth 13 times the price of crude
oil per barrel. In fact, theheist was so extraordinary, it inspired
a 2024Amazon prime series. In2013, in Germany, thieves broke into

(07:21):
a truck and stole five tons ofNutella worth about $20,000.
Holy cow.
And believe it or not, a fewweeks earlier, someone had stolen
a shipment of coffee from thesame location.
Really?
And the year before that,nearby, a truckload of Red Bull had
gone missing. In 2024, thievesstole $2.5 million worth of premium

(07:41):
olive oil from a Houstonwarehouse. Whoa, 18 truckloads. And
I would imagine this would beno surprise, but the stolen oil started
appearing in stores at halfprice. And believe it or not, it
took a little while for peopleto actually notice. In 2021, in California,
a man stole 42,000 pounds ofpistachios. This was worth $170,000.

(08:05):
They were stolen from theTouchstone Pistachio Company. Now,
the thief was caught in theact, moving the nuts from 2,000 pound
sacks into smaller bags forresale. He was literally rep bagging
the evidence when they caught him.
Oh, my.
The lesson here is that food,real valuable, delicious food, is
a target for organized crimeworldwide. And the KitKat heist is

(08:27):
just the latest chapter. 12tons of KitKats still out there somewhere
in Europe.
I'm ready for a joke Fondue.
Okay, what do you call acheese heist that goes perfectly?
Oh, I don't know.
A Gouda plan. Get it? A Gouda plan.
I did it. It was cute.
It was cute and a little bitcheesy. Thanks for listening to Just

(08:51):
Cheesy, the podcast episode,the Big Heist.
Thank you.
Check out our blog this weekwhere we talk about stolen foods
from around the world. Andjoin us in wishing KitKat the best
of luck finding those candy bars.
Good luck and stay cheesy, everybody.

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