A British man pleaded guilty Tuesday to criminal damage and two counts of theft of 200,000 Cadbury creme eggs and other chocolate Saturday.
The chocolate contraband was in a trailer in an industrial unit in Telford in England’s West Midlands region. Thief Joby Pool used a grinder to cut open metal gates before attaching the trailer to a stolen truck with false plates and driving off, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.
Pool didn’t have the eggs in his possession for long, as he was quickly caught on a local highway and brought into police custody with his hands up. The West Mercia Police that caught Pool japed on Twitter that they had “helped save Easter for Creme Egg fans.”
Police said the stolen sweets were worth around 31,000 pounds or $37,220.
Prosecutor Owen Beale saw the incident as premeditated, with possibly more actors involved than just Pool.
“This clearly wasn’t spur-of-the-moment offending, if I can put it like that, because he had taken with him a tractor unit and he had to know that the load was there in the first place. This is clearly an organized criminal matter. You don’t just happen to learn about a trailer with that kind of value being available,” Mr. Beale said in court, according to The Guardian newspaper.
Pool will be sentenced in March and faces around two years in prison.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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