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Spanish supermarkets lock up olive oil as shoplifting surges
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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Honestly, even at Spain you would think they would find something lighter and more concealable. It's like in the US when people were stealing multi-gallon bottles of detergent. If the store owner does decide you're worth going after what are you going to run with that? Price per volume chocolate bars would make more sense. Hell, steak would make more sense.
Which shows the issue. People aren't stealing out of a profit motive, or "criminal energy". They steal, because they struggle to afford living.
People steal for both
I don't know, stealing out of necessity would probably lead me to picking a smaller bottle of oil more often. Trying to run out of a store with 20 lb of oil seems to be a more problematic choice.
Detergent was targeted because it has appealing qualities to it and stores weren't putting that much energy in stopping it.
Detergent doesn't spoil or melt like steak or chocolate.
In some markets, it is relatively easy to flip. It was also being used as a way to launder money, since you could ship stolen detergent into Mexico to be sold in Mexico. No one was really tracking detergent shipments into Mexico.
People had always said money laundering but I had never heard the explanation until now.
Money laundering comes from operating cash based laundromats. This is just a different form.
You've got a point there. Perhaps olive oil is an ingredient so beloved in Spain that it would make sense for them? I dunno.
Olive oil is the most essential ingredient to cooking and living around these parts of the world. There's barely any cooking you can do without it. Literally everyone has to have it.
Gotcha.
Well the secret is chugging the full gallon and regurgitating it when you get home, no one suspects a thing!
The hard part is making the trip home without gurgitating or crapping yourself
One simply needs to douse themselves in a bottle of the oil and nobody will be able to catch them.
It’s ingenious.