Cocoa is so expensive that some suspect that a shipment with 12 tons of Kitkat has been stolen

There was a time when big robberies had their own Hollywood epic: the Bank of England goldthe diamonds of the Great Antwerp Raidthe tickets from the Federal Reserve or the assault on the Mint and Stamp House of The Money Heist. Well, in 2026, European organized crime has decided that the most valuable thing you can take with you in a truck is 413,793 chocolate bars. No, it’s not a joke. In a statement to the AFP agencyNestlé has reported the theft of a shipment of more than 12 tons of KitKat chocolates, an incident that the multinational warns could cause supply problems right in the middle of the Easter campaign. A blow to Easter. According to the company, one of its logistics trucks carrying 413,793 a batch of chocolates KitKat has disappeared while transferring between the production center and the distribution center. According to pointed Reutersthe vehicle had left a factory in central Italy bound for Poland, but its trace was lost somewhere along the way. Since then, neither the truck nor the merchandise have been located and the investigation remains open. Nestlé warns that the disappearance of more than 400,000 units could be noticed in stores in the coming weeks, just at one of the times of greatest chocolate consumption of the year with the arrival of Easter and coinciding with the preparation of traditional sweets and cakes during these days. Pay attention to the black market. The company assures that it is collaborating with local authorities and its logistics network to try to locate the sweet shipment, although for now there are no details about the exact point of the journey at which the truck disappeared. The brand also warned that the stolen bars could enter unofficial sales channels in European markets. To combat this, KitKat noted that it is possible to trace the origin of products by scanning the unique lot codes listed on each bar. If the traceability system detects a coincidence, an action manual has been put in place to alert the company. Make a KitKat. Despite the seriousness of having lost almost half a million chocolate bars, the company has found humor in the face of such an unusual situation. A spokesperson for the brand made fun of KitKat’s famous slogan about taking a break or, as they call it, “making a kitkat.” “We’ve always encouraged people to take a break from KitKat, but it seems thieves have taken it too seriously and made off with more than 12 tonnes of our chocolate.” The truth is that, joking aside, the thieves have taken a button so voluminous that it will hardly go unnoticed if they try to “place” it on the market. “While we appreciate the exceptional taste of criminals, the truth is that merchandise theft is a growing problem for businesses of all sizes,” KitKat stated in its statement. brown gold. The theft comes at a time when the cocoa market is experiencing its biggest correction in decades. After reaching all-time highs above $12,000 per ton in 2024, the price of cocoa at origin has fallen more than 60%, reaching around $3,165 per ton at the end of March 2026. However, that moderation has barely reached the consumer and the cocoa prices They rose by 18% in the EU during 2025. Despite the price of the raw material having moderated, European supermarkets keep prices rising because manufacturers passed on the increases when the market was skyrocketing, but they took it more calmly when it fell. In Xataka | Coffee and cocoa have become so expensive that they are drowning themselves: buyers do not have the money to send them Image | Unsplash (justin, Gabriel Santos)

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