A billionaire in New York has offered a $5,000 reward for the arrest of the thieves responsible for a rash of ice cream thefts in the city.
John Catsimatidis, owner of Gristedes grocery, offered the reward after his store had its ice cream stockpile stolen last week.
It’s part of a rising trend in New York; police told the New York Post there have been over 250 complaints about ice cream thefts, and 130 arrests in 2016.
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Catsimatidis said both locations of his store as well as his competitors have been hit by the thieves.
“Our Upper East Side stores, Upper West Side stores, we lost it in Battery Park City, and it’s time these guys got captured,” Catsimatidis told CBS2.
Catsunatidis told the Post that a man and a woman tried to steal 49 cartons of Haagen-Dazs and 31 cartons of Ben & Jerry’s, but were thwarted by the store manager before getting away.
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The ice cream, which can sell for up to $6 a carton, is then resold to small local stores called bodegas.
“If the bodega owner wants to collect $5,000, maybe he can work out a deal with police department,” Catsimatidis said. “But he’s a bad guy too for buying it.”