Is Canada a Food Crime Hot Spot?

What is it about Canada, that crime in general seems to be less sordid than in the United States. And lately, Canadian crime seems particularly centered around food.

In today's Burlington (Vt.) Free Press, I wrote about a major heist in August of Quebec's strategic maple syrup reserve. There really is such a thing. Apparently, they have stockpiles of syrup in Quebec to get them through lean years when not much syrup is produced because of bad weather. Kind of like the United States has a strategic oil reserve to get us through shortages.

Maple syrup: Now a major factor in Canadian crime?

Anyway, somebody stole something like $30 million worth of the stuff from a Quebec warehouse. Apparently, a lot of it was recently found in New Brunswick but as far as I know, there've been no arrests.

Luckily, the maple heist seems to have had no major effect on maple syrup availability or prices. Which is good, since I could live without maple syrup about as well as I could live without air. And at prices that are around $40 per gallon,  maple syrup could definitely push the budget.

This isn't the only major Canadian food crime recently. Earlier this month, Canadian investigators made arrests in a cheese smuggling ring that involved Canadian police.

That's right, cheese smuggling. Not drug smuggling. Not human trafficking. Cheese.

It seems cheese from the United States is much less expensive than cheese from Canada. So, cheese was smuggled across the border, at which taxes and duties were evaded, and brought into the Great White North.

According to a press release from Niagara Regional Police,   the two suspects were police officers who made about $165,000 from the enterprise.

Is this another scary subject of international
smuggling?

Who'd of thought cheese smuggling could be so lucrative. I wonder what other products could be smuggled across the Canadian border for fun and profit?

Hmm. I could use a pay boost. Maybe I'll become a cheese smuggler. Or something like that. I live only 10 minutes south of the Canadian border, so my location is good.

While I'm at it, I can take a crack at the Canadian Strategic Maple Reserve, too. Because there's nothing better than maple syrup for breakfast, and some nice sharp cheddar for a midday snack.