Antler Heist in Ontario Rounds Out Very Canadian Week in Crime

Manitoba comedian Ryan McMahon suggested Mennonite gangsters might be on the loose in Canada earlier this week, and that was before thieves took off with millions of dollars worth of antlers and several thousand litres of maple syrup.

At 2 AM on Friday, Ontario Provincial Police responded to a call at a taxidermy shop in Caledon, Ontario, where $1.5 million worth of elk, moose and deer antlers went missing. Whoever needed 69 rustic wall hangings so desperately also boosted a pickup truck, two trailers, and two ATVs. (I guess that rules out the Mennonite theory). Then they abandoned the trailer 10 kilometres down the road and took off with the ATVs.

This would have been enough to set off a cascade of eyeroll-inducing "meanwhile in Canada" headlines, except that Quebec just had another maple syrup heist earlier this week. Thieves broke into a warehouse near Montreal's Trudeau airport and took a whole shipping container full of one-litre syrup bottles, according to the CBC. That's at a value of $150,000, which admittedly doesn't compare to the $18 million maple syrup heist that made international headlines back in 2012.

If you're wondering what criminal use a bunch of dried-out animal parts and sugar sap could possibly have, you're not alone. The same could be asked of a series of cucumber raids in Manitoba and several bee heists across Ontario and Quebec. Depending on your perspective, take it as a sign Canada's criminal element is diversifying, or that our basic agriculture infrastructure is ready for an apocalyptic crumble.

So far all suspects, antlers, hives etc. remain at large.

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