Food prices have reached record highs, and this dramatic increase has given rise to a new form of crime: highly specialised networks involved in stealing food products.

Professional theft gangs now target cold storage warehouses, freight shipments, and agricultural estates, carrying out spectacular raids. Who are these new traffickers? How do they choose their targets, and where do they sell their stolen goods? And for producers, retailers and transporters, how can they protect themselves against this emerging form of crime?

In a canning facility in the Gers region, just before the holidays, criminals emptied the entire stock in a matter of hours — one tonne of preserved food gone. In the Lyon area, a meat processing lab was broken into. Local hams and beef cuts were stolen; everything is fair game now. Owners, who had never experienced such theft before, discovered the disaster in the morning without having heard or seen anything. The perpetrators often show a striking level of organisation, loading goods into two or three trucks in less than half an hour.

Equally surprising are large-scale thefts from farms. This summer, a gang struck a potato and onion field in the Pas-de-Calais. Nearly two tonnes of potatoes disappeared. Investigators later found the suspects… on social media, where they were reselling the produce on Facebook and Leboncoin for just one euro per kilo.

Another highly sought-after product is wine. In late October, masked thieves smashed the window of a shop near Toulouse. Once inside, they used two trolleys to clear out shelves of high-end wines and champagne, including a Château Pétrus 2014 worth €5,700 and Rothschild champagne at over €1,000 per bottle. The total loss could reach €100,000.

Across the country, we follow several investigative teams as they trace the trail of these new traffickers.