40 tons of Walnuts stolen

[TimothyC]

80,000 Pounds Of Walnuts Stolen In California

The Huffington Post | Posted: 10/31/2012 2:55 pm EDT

As the Northeast hunkered down in preparation for Hurricane Sandy, authorities on the West Coast were embroiled in a seriously nutty mystery: the disappearance of 80,000 pounds of walnuts, stolen in two installments, from Northern California.

According to the Associated Press, the walnuts were first reported missing Friday by workers at a freight brokerage firm. Workers called the Tehama County Sheriff's Office to say that a truckload of walnuts, purchased by Seattle company F.C. Bloxom and Co., never reached their destination in Miami.

The incident was then matched to a similar theft a few days earlier. A heist on Oct. 23 involved 40,000 pounds of walnuts, which were picked up in Los Molinos, Calif., but never arrived in Texas, where they were expected, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth notes.

According to the Redding Searchlight, authorities believe the two crimes could be the work of the same individual-- a "suspicious delivery driver" with a tall build and strong Russian accent.

The trucking company, hired by San Antonio-based Hill Country Bakery, helped deputies figure out the man who took receipt of the nuts was actually an imposter, albeit a prepared one: The delivery man had managed to secure the correct purchase numbers for the walnuts.

The man is said to be 6 feet 2 inches tall and driving a white semi. The 80,000 pounds of walnuts were valued at about $300,000.

Food thefts, though not quite as flashy as say, diamond thefts, have been in the news recently. In late August, some sticky-fingered thieves up north stole several millions dollars worth of maple syrup from a secure warehouse in Quebec, Canada.

The valuable stolen syrup was recovered earlier this month in New Brunswick, however, where it was put under police protection, pending further investigation.

I have the distinct feeling that these type of thefts are not as rare as they look at first glance, but that we're just hearing about them more after the Maple Syrup Heist.

[TheHammer]

The question is: Is it really a single 6' 2" man, or is it an army of squirrels dressed as a man working together to pull off this heist...

[Zaune]

I have the distinct feeling that these type of thefts are not as rare as they look at first glance, but that we're just hearing about them more after the Maple Syrup Heist.

You're probably right there. Walnuts or stuff like that are probably a safer bet than plasma TVs or whatever; lower return per-volume, maybe, but pretty difficult to trace.

[Sea Skimmer]

Theft of shipping containers and semi trailer trucks is downright common in the US right now, and the value of stuff stolen is estimated to be as high as several tens of billions of dollars each year. We don't actually know because trucking companies do everything they can to suppress news of lost shipments. High value stuff tends to go on trailers or containers with integral GPS tracking, but that can't stop someone from unloading cargo before anyone realizes its happening.

This is nothing new, in fact modern shipping methods have done a damn lot to reduce thefts in shipment which use to be completely absurd on the railways and above all on harbor docks when everything was manhandled from ship to warehouse to traincar or wagon multiple times. It just to be you couldn't even label of crate many items like booze for what they were because theft was all but certain.

[Singular Intellect]

The question is: Is it really a single 6' 2" man, or is it an army of squirrels dressed as a man working together to pull off this heist...

Rumor has it there's now a circulating photo of the suspect: