Thieves aren’t what they used to be either. Vincenzo Peruggia once masterfully managed to steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, but nowadays thieves just go to the supermarket. The treasure that lures them: liquid gold. And that sounds far more spectacular than it is. As the “Financial Times” reports, olive oil has become the most sought-after stolen item in parts of Spain. There is even talk of a gang ring that specifically clears out supermarkets.
Olive oil is an integral part of Mediterranean cuisine. And the oil is also becoming increasingly popular in the rest of the world. It is considered particularly healthy due to the fatty acids it contains. The problem: there is a crisis in the olive oil business. Producers can no longer meet demand. Farmers have been struggling with extreme weather conditions for years, and the bacterium Xylella fastidos is also causing them problems.
The result is becoming more and more visible in the supermarket. The selection is becoming smaller and prices are rising. According to “Lebensmittel Zeitung”, the price of olive oil in Germany has risen by around 60 percent in recent years. Prices are also rising in Spain. While a liter of olive oil used to cost a good 5 euros, consumers now have to shell out up to 14 euros. A lot of wood for a staple food that is not only cooked on a massive scale in the country, but also produced. Along with Greece and Italy, Spain is the main producer of the oil.
This arouses criminal desires. It is reported that no product in Spain’s most populous regions is now stolen more often than olive oil. This means that the “liquid gold” has even overtaken the products alcohol and Iberian ham, which are otherwise popular with thieves, reports the “Financial Times”.
Experts believe that these are not opportunistic thefts, but suspect that organized crime is behind it. This is how a gang ring is said to have discovered the olive oil business. According to this, the thieves loot the supermarkets in order to later offer the stolen goods, diluted or adulterated with other oils, on the black market for horrendous prices – worldwide.
There is no indication that the olive oil shortage will end any time soon. On the contrary. Production has collapsed worldwide. It is expected that around 18 percent less olive oil will be produced worldwide in 2024 than last year. Due to the extreme heat, it is also expected that there will be a drop in quality.
The hunt for oil has just begun, and not just in the supermarkets. Cases have already been reported in Greece and Italy in which thieves in cloak-and-dagger operations did not wait until the oil was in the bottle. They brazenly simply harvested the entire olive grove. “It’s like the Wild West,” Gennaro Sicolo quotes The Telegraph as saying. He is president of the Apulia Agricultural Consortium. He says: “What farmers and especially olive growers are experiencing now is unacceptable.”
Sources: Financial Times, The Telegraph, Food Newspaper
