How organised thieves are fuelling a festive crime wave

From 3,000 bottles of wine to 22 tonnes of stolen cheese and boxes of langoustine, the large-scale theft of high-end food has now become big business.

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It says something about the state of food in 2025 that even Michelin kitchens can’t keep hold of their ingredients. In London this week, Elystan Street released CCTV footage that appeared to show a woman picking up a box of langoustines from outside the restaurant’s Chelsea kitchen. Staff believe around £300 of seafood was taken. After the video went viral, police confirmed they are investigating.

A few miles away at Galvin La Chapelle, staff say they checked their own CCTV and realised they may have been targeted in a similar way earlier this month. Their footage appears to show a person in similar clothing moving through an outdoor delivery area before leaving with what the restaurant says was around £800 worth of meat. It is not known whether police are investigating this incident. At the time of reporting, The Independent understands no arrests have been made.

And it isn’t just London. In France, police are hunting thieves who stole €90,000 (£78,000) worth of snails - an entire year’s production - from one of the country’s most respected snail farms. The haul, 450kg of escargots destined for Michelin-starred restaurants in Champagne, was so vast and so targeted that officers believe a highly organised network was behind it. They stole enough for 10,000 meals, producer Jean-Mathieu Dauvergne said, describing the break-in as a “tough blow” that wiped out his whole season.

What links the Chelsea langoustines, the Spitalfields meat and the Champagne snails is not just the audacity, but the precision. These aren’t opportunistic nicks. They’re planned, deliberate strikes on high-value food - and chefs, producers and police across Europe say they’re becoming more frequent, more coordinated, and significantly more damaging.