Top 10 weirdest things reported stolen
From a 10-ton bridge to a nutty amount of hazelnut spread, here are ten weird things stolen from across the globe.
1- Heavy duty
One evening in the Czech city of Slavkov, a 10-ton bridge was stolen by thieves who said they were hired to demolish it. They dismantled the whole bridge and 650 ft of track and sold it for scrap metal.
2- Fat and sweet rampage
In 2013, 11,000 pounds of Nutella, which would roughly cost $20,000, was stolen from a cargo truck in Germany. Thieves in Germany lifted the boxes of the popular hazelnut spread from a truck and put them into their own truck. Authorities speculated that the theft was related to other food thefts in the area, including coffee and Red Bull. Someone wants to stay up all night – eating Nutella!
3- Spiritual theft
A Buddhist temple in Tacoma, Washington discovered that their bell, which weighed in at an enormous 300 lbs had been stolen. Astonishingly, nobody heard or saw a thing! About a year later, the thief got tired of looking at it and tried to sell it for junk for $500. Unsurprisingly, the buyer reported him!
4- Theft on call
Thieves in Ukraine forged documents and convinced guards at a train museum in Donetsk that they were moving one of the museum’s trains to another location. The 1924 train was then sold for scrap metal.
5- Chilling material
A man in Chile stole five tons of ice from the Jorge Montt glacier in 2012, intending to sell the ice as ‘designer’ ice in bars. Police seized his refrigerated truck and the man was charged with theft and violation of a national monument.
6- Flying to the moon
In 2011, someone managed to steal an authentic rocket engine from NASA and listed it for sale on eBay! NASA didn’t even notice it was gone until someone alerted them to the strange auction.
7- Precious ingredients
In 1992, a restaurant in Hong Kong was burgled, and the thieves made off with $250,000 worth of birds’ nests. The nests are an ingredient in the popular Chinese dish, birds’ nest soup.
8- A 30 ft tall mascot
In Simi Valley, California, a car dealership was robbed of their 350 lb inflatable mascot gorilla in 2010. The 30 ft tall primate often deflated in high winds, so nobody seemed surprised when it initially disappeared from sight. It was only when someone climbed on the roof that they realised that the gorilla had actually been stolen.
9- Penguin on the run
Three drunk men stole a penguin named Dirk from SeaWorld in Australia in 2012. The next day, they dumped the confused creature near a lagoon, where he was later found and returned to SeaWorld. The trio got away with just a fine.
10- Find raw material where it is
In 1990, Los Angeles police discovered that there was a mastermind behind 300 hefty manhole covers that had been stolen across the city. It turned out that the manhole thief was selling the covers for $6 a piece to scrap material dealers.
