Nut Cases

Who would have thought it .......

USA Is Nuts About Nuts

 ..... nuts are big business in the crime world.

Yes, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in January 2024 a truck with $70,000 (£40k) of Pistachio nuts was stolen from a business in Wilmot Township. This followed on from an earlier theft from nearby Cambridge of a truck load of walnuts in November 2023.

Strangely, these aren't the only nut thefts I've come across. In June 2021 Californian police arrested 34-year-old Alberto Montemayor, recovering 42,000 pounds of pistachio nuts that were stolen earlier that month. Apparently the region's lucrative nut industry has been the target of heists in the past. 

Thieves have preyed on US nut distribution for years, usually by posing as truck drivers to steal the product and then selling it off as their own products to retailers. Central California produces mostly pistachios, almonds and walnuts, with almost 50,000 jobs and over $5bn (£3.6bn) in economic value.

For instance there was a news report from way back in 2006 of the thefts of almonds in California, with the report stating that thefts cost California farmers at least $1.5 million in stolen almonds that year, according to the Agricultural Crime Technology Information and Operations Network. 

While in June 2013 a thief posing as an accredited driver drove away with 630 cartons of walnuts, worth $85,000 from Crain Walnut Shelling in Los Molinos, California. He then repeated the trick in Glenn County, where he picked up a second batch of walnuts intended for Bulk Barn, from a processor called Carriere Family Farms ... unusually the driver was later caught, but refused to divulge who had taken delivery of the nuts. Thefts like this usually attract short sentences, with only a year or less actually served, so the thieves will do the time, but more usually don't get caught.

There had been similar heists in 2011 and 2012. In 2013 The Oakdale Leader, a weekly paper began tracking high value loads of nuts that had vanished. It reported half a dozen heists, valued at more than $1 million, in the previous year. More than 35 loads, worth at least $10 million, were reported stolen between 2013 and 2017 alone.

Also in November 2013, in Escalon, California, thieves stole 140,000 pounds (63,500 kilograms), of walnuts worth an estimated at nearly $400,000, taking several truckloads of walnuts, while in October 2013 about 12,000 pounds (5,440 kilograms) of walnuts worth $50,000, were stolen from a trailer parked on a highway. 

US Cargo Theft Hotspots

Apparently shipping cargo thefts like these nut thefts, are very big criminal business in the USA, with $millions or $billions of goods stolen every year, everything from computers for the army, to baby powder for Walmart's, are targeted in what is often a sophisticated computer and identity theft (fake shipping companies or papers etc), as well as the physical thefts of trailers and false plates etc and disposal of the goods to launder their origin.

Cargo Theft Hotspots UK

By comparison, in the UK, according to the the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service there were:

• 5,373 cases of cargo crime.
• Estimated £68 million ($91,905,400) lost in stolen goods.
• 7% increase in cargo crime cases between 2022 and 2023.

In 2023 food and beverages made up 21% of the total goods stolen - a rise from 17% in 2022, and just 14% in 2021. This category leads other commodities because they are often transported without tracking devices or anti-theft technologies. Other categories are:

• Agriculture products (10%).
• Electronics (10%).
• Fuel (8%).

Who knew that this was such a problem?