FOX local: an estimated $400k worth of live lobsters headed for Costco locations in the Midwest hijacked
A few years ago, I made a joke when there was a story about how a truck full of ramen noodles was heisted, how all in all, maybe $4.79 wholesale cost worth of product was actually lost. That the physical truck must have been the size of the Venezuelan land train that was transporting gasoline in the fourth Fast & Furious installment in order for it to amount to the reported cost of theft. That the thieves could probably make way more money on the scrap cost of the truck as opposed to black marketing ramen noodles.
Well, this is kind of the polar opposite of that joke, with a reported $400k worth of live lobsters getting stolen on the way to Costco stores. Where given the cost of inflation and white man greed, there were maybe like 350 live lobsters actually stolen, even factoring in the fact that they were headed to bulk bargain land Costco. I also like how they say locations, as in plural, in Illinois and Minnesota as if they’re trying to convince people that $400k worth of lobsters is more than perhaps two whole stores’ worth of inventory.
I also like how the article uses the word hijacked, because when I hear the term, I think of the scenes from Fast & Furious where a team of Vin Diesel’s street racers in slammed Honda Civics corner semis and use grappling hooks and daredevil jumps to subdue, incapacitate and eject truck drivers before making off with their cargo.
Because instead of a land train getting hijacked, the more likely reality is it was probably like a singular Ford F-350 that was just boosted from a roadside motel’s parking lot, where the thieves had no idea that they booty they were plundering were even lobsters. The driver was probably safely sleeping in a shitty bed with cigarette burns in the comforter. And in this case, the inventory is definitely more expensive than the vessel, and I can’t make the remark about how the truck would yield more in scrap than the cargo.
I don’t imagine live crustaceans having a very high black market value, considering the pain in the ass it is to prepare them, well, but in the grand spectrum of things, it’ll suck for those two stores in the Midwest for those rich assholes who want Costco-priced lobsters and won’t be able to get any for a month until the next shipment can arrive, and even then, the cost will inevitably go up for all stores, since Costco is the type of company that probably wouldn’t want a single region to shoulder the brunt of the increase when all can instead.
Even with the FBI purportedly being on the case, I would wager that this is one of those news stories where nothing is going to be resolved, nobody is going to get caught and it’s just going to be forgotten except in the annals of a personal brog that nobody knows exists. I doubt that this is really so much a high-stakes organization arranging these kinds of heists as much as it’s some petty crooks with some theft skills playing burglary roulette and just hitting a mini jackpot in hitting up a ride with 350 lobsters in it.
But we got lobsters, highway hijinks, and the opportunity to make repeated Fast & Furious references, so it’s the perfect story for me to brog about.
