Seafood thieves make off with $400,000 of lobster, plus oysters and crabs, in a series of New England robberies

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Imagine the buffet.

Forty thousand oysters, $400,000 worth of lobster, and a stash of crabmeat were all stolen in separate New England incidents over the course of a few weeks.

The first seafood theft occurred on Nov. 22 in Falmouth, Maine, where authorities suspect someone took 14 oyster-filled cages from an aquaculture site in Casco Bay. Many of the oysters were mature and ready for sale, and together with the cages, they were valued at $20,000, according to the Maine Marine Patrol.

“This is a devastating situation for a small businessman,” said Marine Patrol Sgt. Matthew Sinclair.

The other two thefts took place in Taunton, Massachusetts—roughly 160 miles (255 kilometers) away. First, a shipment of crab went missing after leaving the Lineage Logistics warehouse on Dec. 2. Then, on Dec. 12, lobster meat bound for Costco stores in Illinois and Minnesota was stolen by a fraudulent trucking company, per the broker who arranged the pickup.

“The carrier we hired impersonated a real carrier,” Dylan Rexing, CEO of Rexing Companies, said Tuesday. “They had a spoofed email address. They changed the name on the side of the truck. They made a fake certified driver’s license. It’s a very sophisticated crime.”

Lineage Logistics, Costco, and Taunton Police did not respond to requests for comment, but Rexing said police informed him about the crab theft from the same warehouse.

That kind of cargo theft has been a problem for over a decade, he said, but it has worsened in recent years.

“It happens every day, multiple times a day,” he said.

Freight theft generally falls into two categories, said Chris Burroughs, president and CEO of the Transportation Intermediaries Association, a trade organization for the freight brokerage industry. The lobster heist fits the first type, which involves someone pretending to be a legitimate trucking company. The second type, known as strategic theft, often uses phishing emails to gain access to computer systems and get paid without actually stealing the product.

“This is a massive growing problem that needs to get addressed,” he said.

Given its short shelf life, the stolen lobster likely ended up in restaurants, both said. And while he’s seen plenty of quips about stealing butter to go with the lobster, Rexing said such thefts ultimately harm consumers.

“Whether you eat seafood or not, they’re stealing other items. They’re stealing items to build your cars. They’re stealing items that go into computers,” he said. “Ultimately, that cost gets thrown to the consumer.”