Cheese Crime

People like stealing fontina fortunes worth of cheese because it’s easy to sell on the black market and is hard to track. The mascarpone market probably doesn’t even have to be super dark for creamy criminals to launder their pinched cheese through conventional cheddar channels thus allowing the roquefort rapscallions to bathe forever in ill-gotten ricotta riches. Cheese is the most stolen food in the world, so let’s read about some cheese crime, shall we? (Unrelated, cheese fire.)

England, 2024: An arrest was made recently in the case of massive cheese theft suffered by Neal’s Yard Dairy who lost 950 wheels of cheese weighing a total of 48,500 pounds.

Canada, 2024: “B.C. RCMP revealed they’d recently foiled an attempted cheese heist at a Whole Foods in North Vancouver. They’d been on patrol Sept. 29 when they found a cart full of cheese outside the grocery store. A suspect fled on foot, leaving $12,800 worth of cheese behind.”

2015, Italy: “The well-equipped gang of 11 individuals was successfully able to steal some 2,039 wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano over the course of roughly two years.”

2015, France: “Under the cover of darkness, a gang of cheese thieves cut through a barbed-wire fence and used a crowbar to break into a Napiot dairy near the Swiss border. They made off with 100 wheels of hard, aged Comté cheese. Dairy farmers there are now considering installing security cameras.”

2017, Wisconsin (3 of them!): “Why would someone steal a truck stocked with thousands of pounds of yellow cheddar? Police and industry experts say it’s all about resale value. The cheese from Marshfield had an estimated retail value of $90,000. The other two stolen loads were worth $70,000 and $46,000 respectively.”

2013, More Wisconsin: “An Illinois man is being charged with trying to steal 42,000 pounds of Muenster cheese from a Wisconsin creamery. Last year we had news of the “mozzarella mafia,” which was smuggling American cheese into Canada and selling it for a third of the price.”

International! “CBC News has learned from numerous police sources that charges are expected soon against a few officers who are alleged to have been involved in the movement of caseloads of cheese from the U.S. to sell to Canadian pizzerias and restaurants.”

This could go on and on. By the way, did you know cheese.com has a whole list with nothin’ on it but different cheeses? You could just look at different cheeses ALL DAY!

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