$400k Lobster Shipment Hijacked Enroute To Illinois Costco Stores

Did someone's pregnant wife really crave lobster?

Lobster isn't exactly one of those things we can eat every week. It's tasty but it's also pretty pricey. That's likely the motive for one thief.

According to NBC Chicago, authorities are looking for a person who impersonated a shipment driver and made off with $400,000 worth of lobster. The shipment was supposed to go to Costco stores in both Illinois and Minnesota.

Dylan Rexing, president and chief executive of the supply chain company, Rexing Companies, said the lobsters were already dead and processed but this isn't a standalone incident. He told the outlet:

This theft wasn’t random. 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.

In this case, what allegedly happened is that the lobster shipment wasn't hijacked at a truck stop or anything similar, but rather it was stolen from the get-go.

A driver with a fake CDL is said to have impersonated the actual driver and picked up the truck.

A company official said that a $400,000 loss is "significant" and that customers could ultimately end up paying the price for incidents like this as they drive up supply chain costs.

Meanwhile, in the aftermath, Rexing is now calling on authorities to step up enforcement against organized criminal networks. There's no word (at least that's been released at this point) on if a criminal network was involved in this particular theft.