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Thieves take 13,000 diapers from NC nonprofit

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Authorities in North Carolina are searching for whoever made a massive, unauthorized withdrawal from a diaper bank.

The Diaper Bank of North Carolina says 13,000 diapers were stolen last weekend. The Durham-based nonprofit provides diapers to struggling families.

Founder and executive director Michelle Old said she went Monday to pick up an order to be distributed to a homeless shelter. She found the order had been strewn across the floor, and various sizes of diapers were missing.

Old said losing the sizes 4 and 5 diapers was especially difficult because babies can stay in them for up to a year and they are hard to keep in stock.

"We already struggle and usually are low on those, but they completely took every diaper," Old said.

In addition, Old said thieves stole all the diapers from a reserve room that holds extra diapers and that no one outside the organization knows about.

A group of volunteers from a church had been in the building last Saturday helping to re-wrap 6,000 packaged diapers for distribution in the community, Old said, adding that the shelves were full on Saturday.

Old said some people told her the diapers have turned up at local yard sales, and were being sold on the street.

"A couple of people, since hearing about this, have contacted us and say they have been approached in the downtown area with people selling our diapers. Our tags are still on them," she said, adding that one woman told her they were going for $4 a package.

BIG nutella heist in Deutschland

Around 5 tons of Nutella was reportedly stolen from a trailer in Germany.

The thieves managed to transport 5 metric tons of the spread from the location without anyone catching them in the act. Initial reports estimate that the stolen goods are worth around $20,000.

Unfortunately for the owners, this isn’t the first time someone has swiped a large number of items from the trailer. In addition to the 5 tons of Nutella stolen from the location, police explained that thieves previously made off with a large supply of energy drinks.

Authorities said the incident occurred in the spa town of Bad Hersfeld. An investigation in the Nutella theft is currently ongoing. No further details about the crime have surfaced as of this writing.

As strange as it may sound, this isn’t the first reported Nutella theft in recent memory. Several students at Columbia University had reportedly stolen around $5,000 worth of the snack. However, school officials stated this figure is greatly exaggerated.

The Dining Services department stated that students were consuming around 100 pounds of Nutella on a daily basis. It’s believed many students were stealing the treat and letting it go to waste. This is the reason why the school was going through so much of the product every week.

“The mundane fact, according to the University’s Division of Dining Services, is that the weekly cost of the Nutella supply is actually less than 10 percent of the amount originally reported on a student blog and quickly picked up by other media,” the school said in an official statement.

Nutella was introduced to world by the Italian company Ferrero back in 1963. Although this was the first time consumers got their hands on the world-famous treat, it was originally conceived back in 1944 using a different recipe and name.

The Tide is Going Out ..............

Tide laundry detergent is meant to be used for household cleaning purposes, but thieves are turning it into something dirty.

Authorities are reporting a spike in thefts of Tide, and in some cities they are setting up task forces where the detergent is sold to track the number of bottles in stores.

Police believe thieves are using the soap on the black market, which retails for $10-$20, to buy drugs. On the black market, Tide is often referred to as "liquid gold" and can go for $5-$10 per bottle.

Last year, in St. Paul, Minnesota, a man is alleged to have stolen $25,000 worth of Tide over 15 months before authorities captured him. Stores such as CVS have amped up security measures to prevent theft; at some locations the detergent is kept in a locked container and an employee must retrieve it for customers.

So why is Tide the only detergent being targeted? Authorities list several reasons: Tide is instantly recognizable because of its Day-Glo orange bottle; it is one of the most expensive brands of laundry detergent; and it does not have serial numbers, so it cannot be tracked.

On social media, people are calling the theft trend "bizarre" and many are blaming it on the tough economy and rising gas prices. One person tweeted that the thefts are "a result of inflation."

A spokesperson for Procter & Gamble, the manufacturer of Tide, called the thefts "unfortunate."

Are we a GREAT Country, or WHAT? The LAND of opportunity ...

Ten years after the Sept. 11 attacks, ex-city worker Natarajan Venkataram says he’s sorry he stole millions of dollars meant for identifying the remains of trade center victims.

He’s just not sorry enough to turn over $400,000 sitting in his bank account in India.

The city has recovered $7 million of the $10 million he and an accomplice stole, but he went to court to hold onto this final portion of his ill-gotten gains.

In a phone interview from the federal prison camp at Fort Dix, N.J., Venkataram, 46, whined about jail conditions and apologized repeatedly for his crime.

Asked about the disputed cash, Venkataram said: “All the issues are still pending in the court.”

The city medical examiner’s office got millions of dollars from the feds to help identify the remains of nearly 3,000 victims.

Venkataram, then a manager dealing with the medical examiner’s computer system, and his girlfriend, Rosa Abreu, siphoned off millions via shell companies and fake contract bids.

When Venkataram learned probers were on to him, he transferred $1 million to his Indian bank accounts, prosecutors say.

Arrested in 2005, Venkataram pleaded guilty to embezzlement and money laundering. He got 15 years in jail; Abreu got six.

Venkataram also was ordered to pay $2.9 million in restitution. Hoping to retrieve even more, the city sued him and won an $8 million judgment in 2009.

“We’ve been using that judgment to collect any other money that we can find of his,” city lawyer Eric Proshansky said.

The city — led by the Department of Investigation — has recovered nearly $7 million from the scheme, including $6 million from an overseas company.

“DOI’s work helped identify how the funds were routed so they could be recovered,” DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said.

Probers discovered a bank in India containing about $700,000. The bank froze the money in 2006, but Venkataram’s sister sued in India to get the money.

In September 2010, U.S courts barred Venkataram and his reps from touching the money.

Venkataram’s court filings have ranged from “contradictory” to “misleading,” Manhattan Federal Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald wrote in July.

He claimed much of the money deposited in his name belongs to relatives and “should not be seized or forfeited.”

He said the money was in his name because India forbids “native residents” from keeping U.S. money in state banks.

In June, the bank transferred $223,000 to the city, records show; approximately $400,000 remains in the account.