The drought and rising costs have skyrocketed the price of extra virgin olive oil. The average price is now around eight euros per liter. And like everything that has value, so-called liquid gold is now a target for criminals. This happened in Teba, a municipality in the north of the province of Málaga of about 3,800 inhabitants, where several people stole about 7,000 liters of this product after breaking into the Terraverne oil mill by force and confiscating pallets full of decanters, even activating the packaging machine in order take more quantity. “They have done us a great deal of damage,” says Andrés García, general manager of the company and one of its seven partners. This is not the first case of similar characteristics in Andalusia. A man was arrested in June for stealing around 19,000 liters from a company in Luque (Córdoba) last spring, with the theft of olives in the field also causing headaches for the Civil Guard.
It was one of the workers at the Teba oil mill, Antonio Domínguez, who sounded the alarm when he arrived at the plant around 7am on August 16th. He found the door to the compound open and one of the cars inside with a broken window. When he entered the building, he found that there was damage and a mess, and oil on the floor because the thieves had left the taps on in some tanks. Staff had recorded a final visit at 10:30 p.m. the night before, so Terraverne officials assume it was well after dawn. There is evidence that several people pried open the bars of an iron window, then ripped it out to disarm the alarm and disable surveillance cameras. Then they opened the factory gates to bring the delivery truck as close as possible to the warehouse and start unloading.
They picked up the goods, which were on nine pallets, crate by crate. It was ready for delivery the same day. “They caught us very heavily laden,” says García. The dozens of boxes prepared mainly contained five-litre jars of extra virgin olive oil, but also two-and-a-half-litre cans and 500-milliliter bottles. “You took part in a spectacular event. “It’s the best we had,” laments the Terraverne manager, who estimates that the thieves stole around 7,000 liters: a little over 6,000 liters were already packed and they were able to pack the rest, “while removing the furniture and ransacked everything that goes with it”. on the premises.” Given the amount of liquid on the floor, the criminals covered it with cellulose to prevent slipping. They also took computers, furniture and documents from the oil mill, the Malaga newspaper reports today.
Terraverne is a company founded in 2021 by seven partners. They obtain their oil from various olive farms spread over the municipalities of Teba, Almargen and Campillos. “What they have taken in is a significant amount, particularly given the quality and scale of the campaign we are in, but the worst part has been that in a season like this we have had to delay some deliveries to customers on the coast.” says García, who has not yet received any official news about the Civil Guard investigation. Sources from the morgue said the investigation was ongoing but there were no arrests at this time.
frequent thefts
The Armed Institute reported last June the arrest of a 47-year-old man from Baena, in Cordoba, for his part in stealing 19,000 liters of oil from a mill in Luque, a town also in Cordoba province. The case followed a complaint from the facility’s officials, who warned that a robbery occurred between March and April. The facilities were not imposed and officers’ investigations focused on those who had access to the premises. The leads eventually allowed them to reach a 47-year-old former worker at the mill, who was fired earlier in the year. He is accused of a robbery as well as forgery of documents because he sold the goods using the delivery notes and the stamp of the oil mill’s scales.
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The high price of olive oil also upsets the Guardia Civil due to numerous olive thefts. In March, agents arrested 16 people for stealing 17 tons of olives in the Las Vegas area and Madrid and processing them at oil mills in Toledo and Guadalajara. More than 50 tons of olives have been reported looted this month alone.