05-22-2008, 12:34 AM
May 21, 2008 01:50am
BUSY thieves have stripped an entire olive grove of its fruit in an overnight raid, the latest of a series of such bizarre thefts.
Quentin Von Essen, who runs an olive grove in Lovedale, in NSW's Hunter Valey, was alarmed to find that all but two of his 400 trees had been stripped of their olives earlier this month.
Mr Von Essen said he was dumbfounded how it could have happened without anyone noticing.
"It would take approximately six people up to three days to pick our olive grove," he said.
"It appears that ... a whole lot of people have come into the grove overnight and stripped trees.
"The eerie part is ... there is not an olive on any of these trees and not an olive on the ground. We would have been able to hear a loud machine."
Mr Von Essen said that he knew of five other properties in the area that had been raided recently.
Mr Von Essen said he had alerted the police.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23733873-2,00.html
BUSY thieves have stripped an entire olive grove of its fruit in an overnight raid, the latest of a series of such bizarre thefts.
Quentin Von Essen, who runs an olive grove in Lovedale, in NSW's Hunter Valey, was alarmed to find that all but two of his 400 trees had been stripped of their olives earlier this month.
Mr Von Essen said he was dumbfounded how it could have happened without anyone noticing.
"It would take approximately six people up to three days to pick our olive grove," he said.
"It appears that ... a whole lot of people have come into the grove overnight and stripped trees.
"The eerie part is ... there is not an olive on any of these trees and not an olive on the ground. We would have been able to hear a loud machine."
Mr Von Essen said that he knew of five other properties in the area that had been raided recently.
Mr Von Essen said he had alerted the police.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23733873-2,00.html