CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Police in Morton Grove are trying to track down $650,000 worth of missing, presumed stolen, lobster.
Morton Grove Police Investigations Cmdr. Paul Yaras said police were called by an insurance adjuster at the beginning of the month about two dozen pallets of missing lobsters.
Cmdr. Yaras said a truck driver, who parks in Morton Grove, was to delivered 26 pallets of lobsters from Maine to a location in Chicago, but that when he made the delivery, there were only two pallets inside the truck.
Investigations Cmdr. Paul Yaras said, "there’s evidence on-scene that leads us to believe that the truck driver is directly involved in the theft of that lobster."
As for the truck driver, Yaras said, he "pled ignorance and he said he didn’t know what happened and that he just knows they loaded the truck and he delivered it."
Cmdr. Yaras said the insurance adjuster had tracked down the semi to Morton Grove and was examining it when the truck driver showed up. He said the adjuster called police when the driver was not cooperating and answering questions.
"What these shippers are supposed to do, they’re supposed to seal their trailers which a lot of them do. Sometimes they don’t and some of these more enterprising drivers will notice that and will see their opportunity," Cmdr. Yaras said.
It's not believed the lobsters were stolen in Morton Grove itself. The commander said, "It’s just a matter of now, figuring out where the lobster was off-loaded cuz that’s where your crime scenes are."
Yaras believes more evidence will be found, and that insurance investigators will "specifically determine where certain things occurred and if that’s the case and we track anything that happened in Morton Grove, we’ll arrest him if we have probable cause to do so."