Gentleman in Illinois accused of stealing 21 tons of Wisconsin Muenster cheese

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Muenster cheese is not a crime. Image: Wikipedia

Veniamin Balika, 34, of Plainfield, IL, was arrested in New Jersey after cops caught him driving a refrigerated truck carrying 42,000 pounds of stolen Muenster cheese.

It was definitely nacho average crime. The cheesy hot goods were produced by K&K Cheese of Cashton, WI with milk from Amish dairies. They were valued at valued at $200,000, which is a whole lot of cheddar.

A portion of the contraband queso-cargo is shown here. The suspect is said to have faked paperwork to move the cheese. From a local TV news report:

New Jersey authorities say Balika was preparing to sell the cheese for well under market value to retailers on the east coast.

"There's a black market for everything," said [Jersey State Police Detective 1 Oliver] Sissman. "We've seen everything stolen. We've found stolen beer, stolen food, stolen machine parts, but this is the first time, we've found stolen cheese. "When I looked inside and saw stolen cheese, I thought, of course it's from Wisconsin," said Sissman.

Thanks to the gouda work of New Jersey's finest, the public can rest easy knowing the criminal will be brie-hind bars. He'll have to tread very Caerphilly in the future.

A news report is below:

(channel3000.com via Washington Post HT for the extra puns, @CounterfeitGent @stoppableforce