You may have heard it here first… Hijackers stole a whole shipment of Kit Kat candy bars somewhere between the factory in Italy and its ultimate destination in Poland. My question to them is, “How do you plan to ‘fence’ the haul?” Each bar is numbered…
A Kit Kat Formula One ‘promo partnership’ bar: Just like the truckload that was stolen…
Okay.
So, you’ve got your hands on 12 tonnes of Kit Kat bars. Hiding the truck shouldn’t be a problem. It’s just like thousands of others on the roads across Western Europe. But how do you get rid of all that candy?
I guarantee you, the crooks aren’t going to go from store to store, pedalling a case that ‘fell of the back of the truck’ here and there.
The middlemen
There’s always been a ready Black Market for booze, cigarettes and other desirable, common pro-ducts. Middlemen buy the stuff in bulk and take care of the ‘distribution’ through their own channels.
But do those channels extend in the direction that heisted chocolate-wafer bars must go to reach consumers? I suspect not. Unless there is a network of middlemen and ‘dealers’ that specializes in confectionary.
The sticking point
While candy bars are both common and desirable, they don’t fetch anywhere near the same prices as booze or smokes. Just for the record, the going rate today for a standard Kit Kat, at my go-to source, is $1.69.
I am assuming the bad guys planned to cash in on the limited-time and limited-supply factors sur-rounding the special bars. Still…
Possibilities…
One market analyst suggested that someone in the legal distribution system – or within the Formula 1 racing organization – thought that taking all those ‘special’ bars out of circulation would lead to a price spike for those that actually make it to stores. Which would mean a windfall for someone on the wholesale or retail end.
Other possibilities include the crooks or middlemen marketing their ill-gotten sweets to collectors or hoarders by the caseloads. The latter two categories of ‘customer’ consider themselves ‘investors’. They would try to sell their stocks in small lots on eBay or Amazon, direct to ‘end users’ – literally, consumers. And that course would help hide the identity of the stolen bars.
Booby-trapped?
Each candy bar bears a unique batch number printed on the back if its label. A list of those numbers will soon be published by Kit Kat and law enforcement officials. Kit Kat has already primed fans to check the numbers on their F1-series bars and report any that show up on the list.
My take
Someone knowingly buying stolen goods – off the internet (or ‘the back of the truck’, for that matter) would never report a suspicious batch number. Protecting everyone else involved all the way back up the Black Market ladder.
But what about the average Kit Kat fan?
My questions for you:
If your go-to source for the bar you love suddenly had a deep-discount deal on the special-edition F1 bars…
Would you be suspicious?
Would you check the batch number and compare it to the official list?
Would you hope for the best – and put out of your mind the possibility you may be eating ‘tainted’ candy?
Would you grab three or four of them, taking advantage of the deal, and make a mental note NOT to check the batch number? Or…
Would you just shrug and rationalize: “It’s okay. They’re insured…”
Muse on that!
~ Maggie J.