Hundreds of truckles of cheddar worth more than £300,000 have been stolen from London cheese specialist Neal’s Yard Dairy.
Fraudsters posing as legitimate wholesalers received the 950 clothbound cheeses from the Southwark-based company before it was realised they were a fake firm.
Neal’s Yard said it had still paid the producers of the cheese so the individual dairies would not have to bear the costs.
It is now trying to deal with the financial setback, a spokesperson said.
This is such a shame, I love Neal’s Yard. You go in there, and they just keep handing you little pieces of different delicious cheeses until you crumble and give them all of your money. It’s such a charming way of doing things, I overspend every single time, and never regret it.
“Alright boys, I want you to break into that warehouse and steal all the cheddar!”
“On it Boss!”
A few hours later
“What do you mean you stole 22 tonnes of cheese!? I meant the money you numbskulls!”
“But Boss, I can feel my skull just fine?”
“Aaarrrgggg!!!”
…truckles?
My first time hearing that word too, but apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truckle
late Middle English (denoting a wheel or pulley): from Anglo-Norman French trocle, from Latin trochlea ‘sheaf of a pulley’. The current sense dates from the early 19th century and was originally dialect.
TIL there’s a black market for cheese…
It’s the most stolen product in the world. Doesn’t depreciate in value and can be stored for a long time.
But … What does one do with 22 tonnes of cheddar? Is there a cheesy black market? Can you buy a wheel off a guy for Bitcoin?
Is there a cheesy black market?
There is, like there is for olive oil, or maple syrup. Especially if it’s authentic. Olive Oil infamously has multiple fakes floating about, where it’s something else passed off as olive oil.
How the hell do you steal 22 tonnes of anything in the middle of London?
From the sounds of it; a rather special case of “show up with a saftey vest, a clipboard, and a determined look on your face, and most people just wave you through”
Warehouses often aren’t all that high security. You could get away with this in most of the ones I’ve worked in.
I guess, but London is one of the most surveilled places I’ve ever seen. You are within the view of a CCTV camera pretty much everywhere.
Once it’s mobile, leave London and transfer it either to another city, or into different vehicles and back into London. It probably took a while for the warehouse to realize what had happened, so the thieves had quite a head start against the investigators.
It’s a game of hide and seek now, until they can offload it to a buyer.
