Fraudsters targeted the high-value cheddar by pretending to be legitimate wholesalers.
Hundreds of truckles of cheddar worth more than £300,000 have been stolen from London cheese specialist Neal’s Yard Dairy.
Fraudsters posing as legitimate wholesalers received the 950 clothbound cheeses from the Southwark-based company before it was realised they were a fake firm.
Neal's Yard said it had still paid the producers of the cheese so the individual dairies would not have to bear the costs.
It is now trying to deal with the financial setback, a spokesperson said.
From the sounds of it; a rather special case of "show up with a saftey vest, a clipboard, and a determined look on your face, and most people just wave you through"
Warehouses often aren't all that high security. You could get away with this in most of the ones I've worked in.
Once it's mobile, leave London and transfer it either to another city, or into different vehicles and back into London. It probably took a while for the warehouse to realize what had happened, so the thieves had quite a head start against the investigators.
It's a game of hide and seek now, until they can offload it to a buyer.