The weirdest heists in history after thieves’ brazen KitKat lorry raid
The weirdest heists in history after thieves’ brazen KitKat lorry raid
Heists don’t always demand the flair of Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, or Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers. While flashy robberies often steal gold and diamonds, there are countless other crimes that take the prize for strangeness.
A Sweet Stolen in Europe
This week, a daring theft made headlines when 413,793 KitKat chocolate bars vanished from a delivery truck en route between Nestlé’s factory in Perugia, Italy, and its Polish destination. The company’s lighthearted response to the incident highlighted a growing trend of criminal activity targeting everyday items.
“We chose to share our experience publicly in hopes of raising awareness about this increasingly common criminal trend,” KitKat remarked in a statement.
A Cadbury Mystery in the UK
Two years prior, a similar crime unfolded in the UK. In 2023, a tractor was used to steal a trailer brimming with 200,000 Cadbury Creme Eggs from an industrial unit in Telford, Shropshire. The thief, Joby Pool, a 32-year-old from near Leeds, was later apprehended after driving the stolen goods north on the M42.
Bizarre Cargo Heists in Germany
Looking further back, the late 2010s saw a peculiar series of vehicle cargo thefts in Germany. In August 2017, thieves spirited away 20 tons of Nutella and Kinder Surprise eggs from Neustadt, stealing thousands of fiddly plastic toys along the way. Just days later, a second semi-trailer with 30 tons of fruit juice disappeared from Wittenburg, near Hamburg. Yet neither matched the scale of a January 2018 theft in Freiburg, where 44 tons of chocolate were taken from an industrial park.
Wisconsin’s Cheese Caper
Across the Atlantic, a cheese heist in 2016 offered a twist on typical thefts. Police in Marshfield were alerted that $90,000 worth of parmesan cheese had vanished from a distributor. A tip led them to Grand Chute, southwest of Green Bay, where the cheese was found in a warehouse. Meanwhile, another trailer with $70,000 worth of dairy products had already been stolen from Germantown in the same timeframe.
The Bug Heist at a US Museum
Back in the UK, a cheese fraud in October 2024 left London’s Neal’s Yard firm scrambling. The company was contacted by individuals claiming to be a French retailer’s wholesale distributor, only to discover the entire scheme was a ruse. Over 950 wheels of cheddar, totaling 22 tons and valued at £300,000, were lost to the deception.
Meanwhile, in the US, the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion — once a pioneering bug zoo — faced its own bizarre theft. In August 2018, Dr. John Cambridge arrived to find the tanks and shelves mysteriously empty. Thousands of live insects had been nicked, sparking a four-part TV documentary and heated disputes among staff over responsibility.
From chocolate to cheese, these bizarre incidents reveal how crime can target the most unexpected items. Whether it’s a lorry full of sweets or a warehouse of live bugs, the line between the ordinary and the extraordinary is often thinner than it seems.
