A Spanish man has been thrown in the slammer for stealing more than $750,000 worth of ham from his employer.
Over the course of six years, between 2007 and 2013, the unnamed thief filched 7,000 cuts of delicious jamón from his employer in the southern Spanish city of Huelva to resell on the ham black market, which was not something we expected to exist.
As reported in The Guardian, the ham burglar (we were all thinking it) had been placed in charge of taking delivery of the jamones – more than 100 of which were rare jamón de jabugo, which are made from blackfoot pigs who eat nothing but acorns for the final three months before slaughter, and sell for more than €500 (around AU$735) a pop.
He took advantage of his position overseeing the curing process to resell jamones using a messenger service, stealing €520,000 – or just north of AU$765,000 – in total. The man and his wife, an accomplice to his hambezzlement scheme, have since been convicted of defrauding his employer.
The duo has been ordered to repay the company for the money they stole. In addition, the pork-pincher himself will spend 11 months and 29 days in the pigpen, where he too will hopefully be cured – of his criminal impulses, that is.
