It sounds too bizarre to be true. Police have ‘smashed’ an alleged avocado ring after searching the Renmark man’s house last week and finding hundreds of stolen fruits.
The owner of the avocados is still unknown, but it turns out it’s not the first theft in the area, with a number of avocados being reported missing from nearby orchards. In one case, nearly 1,000 were stolen from a fruit block in October last year.
The avocado crime-wave is also proving a problem for our neighbours in New Zealand, with thieves now turning to Facebook to sell their stolen goods there this week.
“We are seeing thousands of dollars of fruit stolen in a single hit and people’s livelihoods are getting ruined,” Western Bay of Plenty Police Sergeant Trevor Brown told The Guardian. “It is not like just stealing a couple of mandarins off your neighbour’s tree, we take it very seriously.”
The 29-year-old man has now been charged with unlawful possession.
No word yet on whether he was planning to use them to buy a house.
