413,793 KitKat Bars Stolen in Bizarre Candy Heist

Somewhere between Italy and Poland, a truck carrying more than 12 tons of KitKat bars seemingly vanished into thin air. That’s 413,793 individual bars. Break those bars down into the individual chocolate-covered wafer sticks that comprise a KitKat bar, and that’s 16,551,072 sticks that are untraceable right now. That is, until authorities find someone between Poland and Italy who has slipped into a diabetic coma with a ring of chocolate around their lips.

Nestlé, the Swiss chocolate megacorp that manufactures KitKat bars, confirmed that the shipment was en route from a production facility in central Italy to distribution points across Europe. The vehicle itself is also missing, as you can imagine.

Someone Stole 413,793 KitKat Bars in an Extremely Strange Candy Heist

The cargo wasn’t just KitKat bars. It was a promotional tie-in KitKat bar, in this case, as the bars were tied to the company’s partnership with Formula 1. I guess that might make them more valuable? Or maybe the thieves indiscriminately stole several tons of bars with no regard for the promotional tie-in. They could’ve been a Shrek tie-in for all they care; they just want those KitKats.

This is, of course, another example of a high-stakes food heist, of which I have covered several times over in the past couple of years. Really, another example of just heists in general, which seem en vogue again.

The global economy is in shambles, and the price of everything has skyrocketed. People are just barely scraping by. Others are taking matters into their own hands and adding to the growing sophistication of cargo thefts across global supply chains.

No injuries were reported, and only one shipment was involved. This doesn’t appear to be a smash-and-grab job so far. It appeared coordinated. Nestlé says each bar is equipped with a unique code on the wrapper that allows anyone to identify whether it came from the missing shipment.

If flagged, the company says it can trace it and respond immediately. Theoretically, this can limit the ability of the stolen chocolate to blend back into society like a thief in the night, but it’s entirely dependent upon whether anyone actually notices the number and then cares to find out if this particular bar is a part of the heist haul.

The chocolate is still out there, maybe already in circulation, maybe lying in wait until the heat dies down. It’s still early in the investigation, so there’s no telling what will ultimately become of these precious chocolatey bars. Every KitKat bar you eat from now on may be tinged with the thought that you’re eating stolen goods, an idea that may weigh so heavily on your soul that it fractures it into individual bite-sized sticks.

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