Friday, August 31, 2012

$30 million in Canadian maple syrup stolen

The puzzle is how the culprits managed to siphon off almost C$30 million ($30.4 million) of syrup. That’s the equivalent of 10 million pounds or roughly 15,000 barrels of syrup. And the stock didn’t vanish somewhere in the supply chain of a major city. It’s missing from a warehouse in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, a tiny town of 903 people, according to the 2011 Census. They’re usually more focused on cranberries, whether it’s harvesting them or celebrating them in cranberry festivals. So imagine the surprise when a “routine inventory check,” as the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (FPAQ) calls it, revealed evidence of a massive heist. Row after row of barrels were empty, filled with nothing but sweet-smelling Quebec air. Trouble is, unlike laundered money, maple syrup doesn’t come with a serial number. In fact, food is proving to be a remarkably easy commodity to steal. Bristol Voss of Minyanville notes that, in Canada alone, thieves have recently made off with a “football field’s worth” of potatoes, hives containing 3,600 kilograms of honey, 6,000 cattle, and 72,000 kilograms of chicken...more

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