Cough-Drop Caper

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 25, 2001 | by Stephen Goode

Know anyone with a bad cough or a heck of a sore throat? In Malaysia, police are stumped by a carefully planned and executed May robbery in which thieves stole superstrong throat lozenges valued at $526,000. They took nothing else, even though there was plenty of other loot for the taking.

Assistant Police Commissioner Hussin Ismail told the New Straits Times that five men entered a warehouse in Shah Alam near Kuala Lumpur. They first disconnected the video security system, then loaded Fisherman's Friend lozenges by the gross onto a truck.

"They used a forklift to load the items ... before driving it off using a hauler they'd brought along," Hussin said. Hundreds of other valuable items were stored in the warehouse, but only the lozenges were removed.

According to the Associated Press, police suspect the heist was an inside job. That will make it easier to locate someone with a bad sore throat because the thieves knew how to disarm the security system, exactly what they wanted and where it was located.

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