Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
What did you get for the holidays? A recycled fruitcake? A Labubu? Perhaps a gigantic bow, but no car since they couldn’t afford it? All those things are indeed gifts that you could have received from someone you hate, but if you received a bunch of frozen Costco lobster, you should probably look into where it came from, because the probability is high that it might have been stolen, especially if you live somewhere between the greater New England area and Minnesota.
This lobster is neither frozen nor stolen… at least not yet. (Bart Braun/Creative Commons)
The story begins, not in Maine, but down the Northeast Corridor in Massachusetts. Indiana-based shipping outfit Rexing Companies was hired to transport $400,000 worth of frozen lobster to Minnesota and Illinois, mainly because Lake Superior isn’t known for its fresh lobster. This begs the question, how great are the Great Lakes if they don’t have any lobster in them?
At any rate, the crustaceans never reached their intended destination, thanks to sophisticated technology and thieves with a taste for sea bugs. Burner phones and spoofed emails were involved, as were thieves who knew how to drive a truck. The drivers had fake IDs as well. “This theft wasn’t random,” Rexing Companies president Dylan Rexing said. “It followed a pattern we’re seeing more and more, where criminals impersonate legitimate carriers using spoofed emails and burner phones to hijack high-value freight while it’s in transit.”
There’s a reason that this is happening, and part of it involves the seafood itself. Since it’s frozen, that gives the criminals more time to get rid of the food, since it’ll keep longer. Criminals used the same methods (burner phones, fake email addresses, etc.) to steal frozen crab days earlier. The stolen seafood could be literally anywhere, so if a guy with a trenchcoat comes up to you and says “psst, wanna buy some seafood?” then opens it up to flash you some claws, you know where it might’ve come from.
“It never ends,” one frozen lobster said. “One day I’m chilling in the Atlantic Ocean, and now I’m literally chilling. Its’ c-c-c-old! Sure, I’m the dummy for getting caught in that lobster trap, but my curiosity got the best of me. I figured my days were numbered, but I thought at least maybe I’d wind up in a fish tank at a seafood restaurant before my time was up, getting to see the jerk that pointed at me before eating me. But no. It’s freezing, and I was put in a truck, and now I’m in a warehouse since there’s a black market for red lobster. Just boil me and end it already!”
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
