The paramilitary-style hijacking of a lorry carrying extra virgin olive oil in southern Italy has led to fears that criminal gangs are targeting Italy’s “green gold” as its price soars.
The lorry loaded with olive oil was forced to a halt on an empty road in Puglia when five masked men travelling in an SUV overtook the vehicle and cut if off while firing warning shots.
The driver, a Serbian citizen aged 41, told police he was bundled into the SUV while one of the robbers drove the lorry to a remote location where it was later found, emptied of the oil. The driver was left abandoned alongside the lorry.
Olive trees in Puglia, in the heel of Italy, the source of about 65 per cent of Italy’s olive oil
GETTY IMAGES
Police are said to believe that the robbers were seasoned professionals who had inside information on the lorry’s movements and were possibly hired for the job after a near 100 per cent rise in the price of olive oil in Italy in the last three years.
“When one truckload of olive oil can be worth €300,000, it is no surprise criminals are tempted to try and pull off heists like this,” said Nicola di Noia, the director-general of Italian olive oil producers’ consortium Unaprol.
The lorry had picked up its cargo in Andria, a busy production centre in Puglia, the region in the heel of Italy where about 65 per cent of Italy’s olive oil originates, before it was dumped near Corato, close to the 13th-century Castel del Monte.
Di Noia said that olive oil in the region was being sold by producers for between €10-€12 a litre, up from €6 only three years ago. The average price of olive oil in Italian supermarkets is €14-€15 a litre, he added.
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“The price hike has been caused by drought which pushed Italy’s harvest down 20 per cent year on year to 300,000 tonnes in 2024,” he said.
Recent harvests have also been affected by freak rains, which are linked to plagues of olive flies, which lay eggs inside olives.
A long term threat is the Xylella fastidiosa bacteria, introduced from Costa Rica and transmitted by insects, which has laid waste to hundreds of groves in Puglia.
The cost of olive oil has spiralled over the past few years and it has become a luxury item for some households
The heist on April 2 follows an attempted raid on an olive oil press near Andria last year and the first hold-up of a lorry in the area in 2020.
Since then police officers or private security firms have escorted lorries carrying large loads. In this instance the ability of the gang to rob a lorry with no escort is further evidence they had inside information.
The operation used similar tactics to those employed by gangs from Cerignola in Puglia who carry out rapid, violent and highly lucrative robberies from security vans on Italy’s motorways.
Nicknamed “Fast and Furious” gangs after the series of heist films of the same name, the Kalashnikov and bazooka-wielding groups scatter nails across busy motorways and set fire to lorries to trap currency-loaded security vans and empty them while keeping police at a distance before they escape on side roads in stolen cars.