- Out of all the things you could steal…
If 2022 has proven anything, it’s that if it’s not nailed down, somebody will steal it. Just look at all this heist news this year!
There was some hubbub about the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist earlier in the year. Then there was the case of three Florida men stealing $9 million worth of beef.
There’s been enough bizarre heist action that we compiled a whole list of it.
We can now add another weird crime to that list. In Germany, crooks recently made a large-scale swipe, stealing goods potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — or even more.
What do you think they stole? Maybe jewelry or crude oil? Some kind of cutting-edge technology?
Nope. The criminals stole a massive load of bull semen.
We don’t know what they’re planning to do with it. Neither do the cops — German police are asking the public for help to solve the bizarre crime.
A Puzzling Crime
The crime happened in the town of Olfen, northwestern Germany, some 60 miles from Cologne. The criminals struck at some point during the night between December 5 and 6.
Altogether, they made away with around 60 containers of bull sperm, give or take a few.
But how much sperm actually is that?
Well, the authorities haven’t confirmed how large the containers were. But based on some basic background research, one container can hold a dozen or more doses of semen.
In other words, that’s a lot of bull juice.
But what’s puzzling the cops more than why the criminals stole the semen is how they did it. You see, bull sperm doesn’t exactly have a long shelf life.
To keep the little bovine swimmers viable, the sperm needs to be immersed in liquid nitrogen. The temperature in the sperm container can be as low as -320 degrees Fahrenheit.
As you can probably guess, you can’t use just any container to hold the sperm. Additionally, it’s not clear whether the stolen containers can maintain their low temperature themselves or if they need to be kept in a special environment.
In other words, the criminals must’ve had a vehicle with an integrated professional-grade cooling system. That, or they now have in their hands possibly gallons of rancid bull sperm.
Ugh. Really wish we’d phrased that differently.
Precious, Precious Sperm
We’ve been repeatedly asking why somebody would steal bull sperm. But in all honesty, the answer is pretty simple.
It’s valuable. Farmers selling bull sperm can rake in absurd amounts of money per vial.
As with animal breeding in general, the parentage of the beasts matters.
“Cryopreservation of semen and artificial insemination have an important, positive impact on cattle production, and product quality. Through the use of cryopreserved semen and artificial insemination, sperm from the best breeding bulls can be used to inseminate thousands of cows around the world,” one study states.
Of course, the actual price of the semen depends on multiple factors. The breed, age, and breeding record of the bull are just some of the things that affect the cost of its sperm.
For the sperm of an old bull whose only sired misshapen mistakes of nature, you probably won’t get squat. But high-quality goo from high-quality bulls is worth thousands upon thousands of dollars.
For example, in 2019, 10 vials of semen from a hunky Wagyu bull sold for more than $67,000.
So that’s $6,700 per dose. Now, let’s assume that each of the stolen 60 containers had 12 doses of semen.
That would put the stolen sperm’s value at more than $4.8 million. It’s no wonder that its legal owners would like to get their precious sperm back.
That’s also why the police have asked anyone who might’ve seen anything to step forward with information. Not only has a valuable load been stolen, but it could also be completely ruined if the containers aren’t stored properly.
Nobody would want all that sperm to turn into just a load of bull, right?
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