Last night, authorities in Toronto, Canada, wept openly as they were caught up amidst a highly professional and petty ransacking of a Cheese Factory on the outskirts of the city. 200 tones of Canadian Cheddar and Oka cheeses were taken.

Intelligence agencies from both Canada and the UK working in tandem, believe this to be the work of the notorious 'Cheese Bandits'.  The Cheese Bandits began their campaign of terror in 1994; in fact our very first issue of the Cheese Times ran the original Bandits story. They had broken into a local cheese warehouse in deepest darkest Cornwall, UK, home of inbred folk and stolen every last piece of cheese in the gaff. Since then the cheese bandits continued their exploits, becoming ever more sophisticated, and going for ever more risky targets, always where there was a high concentration of Cheese and herbs. Many believed they were herb junkies, maybe pepper snorters from a Welsh Valley, just taking cheese for kicks. Others, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, believed the bandits to be serious cheese connoisseurs with appetites the size of voluminous houses. Whilst Tories believed they were crazy, young rebels in need of a kicking and a five year stint in the army, saying at the time "why don’t we bring back mandatory military service for all under 40's and the death sentence for those opposed?"

All fears and questions about the Cheese Bandits faded without conclusion when they mysteriously halted their campaign. Their last known attack was on the secret cheese vault in Harrods, Knightsbridge, London where five bars of 'Gold Cheese,' the most expensive cheese lb for lb on the planet, were taken in 1999. Never caught, some believed they had perhaps overdosed on their mixed herb and pepper habits, or maybe such huge consumption of Cheese had caused an onset of chronic cardiovascular related illnesses and thus massive death. Others believed the gang had got simply got bored and moved on to pastures new, such as stealing meat. All those theories fell down and exploded last night, when the Bandits returned in style with their biggest ever cheese haul.

Initially there were no thoughts that this case was related in any way to the mid nineties UK Cheese carnage of the Cheese Bandits. A number of cheese shops in the local area of Ontario, Canada, had been hit by cheese thieves and cheese confidence tricksters. The local police, described by witnesses as 'Mounties,' believe the cheese was taken for illegal wholesale over the border in the Chicago area, where cheese is relatively expensive compared to Canada’s prices, and there is a huge black market trade in mild cheddar due to extortionate US taxes on foreign dairy products. A British police chief, on holiday in the region with his love slave, saw the reports of the case on TV and rang local cops, who he and his love slave described as 'Mounties,' with details of the British Cheese Bandits.
As clues gathered, it soon became apparent that the authorities in Canada were dealing with the same gang of Cheese Bandits. A print lifted from lastest crime scene matched a print taken from Harrods cheese vault leaving police in no real doubt that the Cheese Bandits were back, more determined, sarcastic and daring than ever!

This latest and most chilling case involved a super intelligent and cunning trap set up by the Cheese Bandits, designed to mock and elude the Ontario Police, aka 'The Mounties.' Whilst transferring their cheesy loot of over two hundred pounds of finest Canadian Cheddar from a Orangeville factory to an van, The Cheese Bandits, aware of the local police infiltration of the warehouse, took off their shoes and placed them just poking around the corner of some highly stacked empty cheese crates, creating the illusion that they were hiding from 'Mounties', with child like naivety, just around the corner.
After a brief huddle, whilst they discussed tactics, drank coffee and ate snacks, the police, or 'Mounties' then converged on the spot where the "feet" were poking out, only to discover, with gut wrenching disappointment, just empty shoes. As the police officers burst into tears they were ambushed by the bandits brandishing "spud guns" that had been altered to fire not only solid cheese but also a hot liquid cheese. The police were sprayed in the eyes with the hot liquid cheese causing eye-ball chaffing, they also suffered pin prick bruising caused by miniature pellets of hard cheese that were fired at them. The hard cheese used is thought to be Canadian Oka that they had also pinched, in much less quantity, along with the cheddar. The Cheese Bandits then made an effortless escape as 'Mounties' ran screaming from the factory. Police across the globe are now looking for three men in their late twenties, with spud guns, bag loads of cheddar and no shoes.

 

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