$300,000 Worth of Frozen Costco Shrimp Stolen in Bizarre Heist

A couple of sticky-fingered thieves made off with over 500,000 frozen shrimp valued at more than $300,000 , as well as the truck in which they were transported, in a bizarre heist caught on camera, Law & Crime and WCAU reported.

The jilted truck driver, who declined to identify himself, discovered the theft when he returned to the Middlesex, New Jersey parking lot where he’d been parking the vehicle. The delivery was intended for a Costco in Monroe Township, which is less than 30 miles away from Middlesex. Surveillance video from the parking lot reportedly shows a pair of thieves driving the truck away during the “late morning” hours of Sept. 5, shortly before the truck’s owner arrived on the scene.

“When I came into the yard, I don’t see my truck,” he recalled. “I don’t understand what happened. Where’s my truck? It's only me and my truck, now I don't have a job for a week,” the driver lamented. “I've tried to make applications, [but] I need to keep waiting." He’s hopeful that the two men will be caught and his truck returned to him.

It seems that the thieves were unaware the truck contained shrimp, as the shipment was later found discarded about 16 miles away. The roughly 500,000 frozen shrimp were valued at around $305,000, but authorities were skeptical as to how the criminals planned to store or sell 25,000 pounds of contraband before it expired. Apparently, they never intended to.

However, in a peculiar twist, officers saw on the security tapes that the two men had broken into four other trailers on the lot during the first week of September. For some reason, they opted not to steal those vehicles but decided to move on the one filled with shrimp.

"We see everything. It's not like anything surprises us," Middlesex Police Det. Sgt. Sean Flanagan told WCAU . "It's part of [the job], we see weird crimes reported." However, Flanagan conceded that this incident was “definitely unusual.” “We haven’t had something like this in Middlesex Borough before,” he admitted.