Inside the bitter battle to bring down the butter bandits

It’s been a tough news week, let’s end it on a butter note. Thieves in Guelph, Ontario—but not just in Guelph, Ontario—have been stealing hundreds of pounds of butter from grocery stores, making off with about $1,000 worth of the yellow gold with each successive heist. It’s been happening for months, and the only people police managed to charge so far have vanished.

Mark Colley is a Toronto-based general assignment reporter for the Toronto Star. “It doesn’t seem particularly complex or elaborate. It is walking into a store, grabbing a whole load of butter, and walking out,” said Colley. 

So why butter? What do you even do with a hundred pounds of butter at a time? Who’s buying it and what are they using it for? And why, with so much evidence and such brazen thefts, have police not been able to stop it?

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