Reader, please select your own corny first line for this article:
1. Talk about a sticky-fingered thief!
2. It’s a crime you just can’t sugar coat.
3. I’ve heard of stealing some dough, but this is ridiculous.
The tale began at 4 a.m. on Wednesday in Carlingford, Australia, near Sydney, when a delivery driver working the night shift stopped his van to made a quick stop at a 7-Eleven.
Closed circuit footage of the scene shows a woman milling around the gas pumps at the attached service station — or “servo” to Australians — and then climbing into the unattended van and driving away.
What makes the story more compelling than a typical opportunistic vehicle theft is the van’s contents: 10,000 Krispy Kreme doughnuts. The treats were bound for shops in Newcastle, but instead have now disappeared to parts unknown.
As of Friday, the New South Wales police had not made any arrests, although they are, well, hungry to. The department posted an appeal for help from the public, next to items about a brawl in Warrawong and a missing man from Wagga Wagga. Perhaps unschooled in the ways of clickbait, the police headlined the item, uncreatively, “Appeal for information after van stolen.”
“Our Krispy Kreme team is working to replace the 10,000 stolen doughnuts,” the company’s head of supply chain, Lenny Reddy, reassured N.C.A. Newswire.
Unlike Jean Valjean, who stole a loaf of bread in “Les Miserables” because he was starving, this thief may have been motivated less by an insatiable love of Krispy Kremes than by a chance for an easy van heist. Given that the van was unmarked, it is likely that the cargo was merely a delicious surprise to the culprit.
The haul included both Christmas-themed and classic doughnuts, News.com.au reported.
On the other side of the world last month, a Dunkin’ Donuts truck was stolen in Connecticut, although in that case the thief apparently remained hungry because the doughnuts fell out of the back. There is no indication that the crimes were connected or that an international ring of doughnut thieves is at work.
Reader, please select your own corny final sentence for this article:
1. If an arrest is made, it is expected to be followed by sweet justice leavened with mercy.
2. Perhaps the police will be hunting for someone with a glazed expression.
3. And that’s the hole truth.
