"crime" news and stories

Maybe they just really, really like blueberries.

In the Canadian city of Abbotsford, thieves made off with 20,000 blueberry bushes earlier this week. The bushes were delivered to a farmer who intended to plant them, but when his workers showed up, the bushes were gone.

Now, why the thieves would steal blueberries is a mystery, but it's certainly reasonable to assume that they were thinking of money. Since news of blueberries' health benefits have been in the media, berries are in high demand. The thieves could probably sell the bushes to another farmer. According to Marc Sweeney, the blueberry bushes will "end up on one of several new blueberry farms in the local Fraser Valley."

But the real question in my mind is how the blueberry burglars made off with 20,000 bushes. I don't know how big the bushes were, but 20,000 sure sounds like it would be quite a bit of volume.

Forget about the masked bandit in black and white who sneaks around in the shadows of the Golden Arches. Dupont Cheese Factory in Marion, Wisconsin was hit on Monday morning by real cheeseburglars who stole 350 pounds of meat, more than 100 pounds of cheese and a dozen cases of beer.

The County Sheriff reports that the stolen items include 80 pounds of garlic sausage, 80 pounds of summer sausage, 80 pounds of beef sausage, 60 pounds of snack sausage, 30 pounds of bacon, 15 pounds of smoked beef, 48 jars of herring, 70 pounds of string cheese and a 40-pound block of cheese carved into the shape of a wedding bell.

Authorities say they have no suspects, but I think they should just stake out local weddings for that 40 pound cheese wedding bell.

At least, in Colorado. And that's if you happen to be stealing from it a dumpster behind a produce market.

Two men, Giles Charle and David Siller, took 5 cucumbers, 4 apricots, 2 bundles of asparagus spears and a handful of cherries from a garbage dumpster behind the Sweet Pea Produce Market in Steamboat Springs, Colorado on their way to the city's annual family gathering. Tey will be spending six months in jail.

So much for Mom's lectures about eating all your fruits and veggies!

Three people were charged yesterday by federal prosecutors for stealing confidential information from the Coca-Cola Company's Atlanta Headquarters. Joya Williams, administrative assistant to a top executive, Ibrahim Dimson and Edmund Duhaney "were arrested on charges of wire fraud and unlawfully stealing and selling Coke trade secrets," federal prosecutors said. Specifically, they stole insider documents and a bottled sample of one of Coke's newest, unreleased products and were planning to sell them to Coke rival, PepsiCo.

Dimson contacted Pepsi via a letter, mailed in an official Coca-Cola envelope, and asked for more than $80,000 for the stolen documents and drink sample. Pepsi contacted Coke and the authorities were brought in. The investigation culminated when an undercover FBI agent offered to pay $1.5 million for other trade secrets from Coke.

Both Coke and Pepsi complied with and assisted the FBI and other authorities during their investigation. Coke says that it will be difficult to overcome this "breach of trust" from Williams, who "[rifled] through corporate files and [stuffed] documents and a new Coca-Cola product into a personal bag" - actions which were caught on the company surveillance videos - and that they will review its "review its information protection policies, procedures and practices."

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