Muenster cheese is not a crime. Image: Wikipedia
Veniamin Balika, 34, of Plainfield, IL, was arrested in New Jersey after cops caught him driving a refrigerated truck carrying 42,000 pounds of stolen Muenster cheese.
It was definitely nacho average crime. The cheesy hot goods were produced by K&K Cheese of Cashton, WI with milk from Amish dairies. They were valued at valued at $200,000, which is a whole lot of cheddar.
A portion of the contraband queso-cargo is shown here. The suspect is said to have faked paperwork to move the cheese. From a local TV news report:
New Jersey authorities say Balika was preparing to sell the cheese for well under market value to retailers on the east coast.
“There’s a black market for everything,” said [Jersey State Police Detective 1 Oliver] Sissman. “We’ve seen everything stolen. We’ve found stolen beer, stolen food, stolen machine parts, but this is the first time, we’ve found stolen cheese. “When I looked inside and saw stolen cheese, I thought, of course it’s from Wisconsin,” said Sissman.
Thanks to the gouda work of New Jersey’s finest, the public can rest easy knowing the criminal will be brie-hind bars. He’ll have to tread very Caerphilly in the future.
A news report is below:
(channel3000.com via Washington Post HT for the extra puns, @CounterfeitGent @stoppableforce