Durian Theft in Hilo Hawaii

[Triloba Tracker]

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/crime/article/Hawaii-police-say-thieves-took-1K-worth-of-15061485.php

I did a couple forum searches and didn't seem to find anything related to this February 1 incident.

Crazy.

[sahai1]

one k9 could likely track it anywhere on island, the amount of people with fresh durian has to be very limited over there right?

[knlim000]

Maybe write the words " infected with Coronavirus" on the durian with your name on it.

[Bush2Beach]

Fell flat, total miss, try again next time

Maybe write the words " infected with Coronavirus" on the durian with your name on it.

[joehewitt]

Agricultural theft is a big problem in Hawaii and many small farms are robbed on a regular basis. It has been a struggle to get law enforcement to do anything about this problem, and you certainly never hear about it in the national media. So why is this incident receiving so much attention? Well, the folks who were robbed have a little sway over the media, they are the federal government. This was a USDA research station which was robbed. For whatever reason they don’t want to mention this in the media coverage.  They grow a lot of other fruit there and as far as I know it all rots on the ground. I guess the durian trees are one thing the employees actually take the time to harvest and sell.  When I was there on a tour last year they said their avocado grove is also a target of thieves and has security cameras all round it. I do not wish to make light of this offense but it’s a bit annoying to have so much agricultural theft ignored by the police and the media, except when USDA is the target.

[ben mango]

Article gives no details. Durian sells for $3-4/lb a pound on big island. At $25-60+ per fruit it’s really Not surprising at all that people steal it.

[fruitlovers]

Agricultural theft is a big problem in Hawaii and many small farms are robbed on a regular basis. It has been a struggle to get law enforcement to do anything about this problem, and you certainly never hear about it in the national media. So why is this incident receiving so much attention? Well, the folks who were robbed have a little sway over the media, they are the federal government. This was a USDA research station which was robbed. For whatever reason they don’t want to mention this in the media coverage.  They grow a lot of other fruit there and as far as I know it all rots on the ground. I guess the durian trees are one thing the employees actually take the time to harvest and sell.  When I was there on a tour last year they said their avocado grove is also a target of thieves and has security cameras all round it. I do not wish to make light of this offense but it’s a bit annoying to have so much agricultural theft ignored by the police and the media, except when USDA is the target.

Ag theft was almost non existent when i first came to Hawaii. It's gotten a lot worse in the last 10 years. The experimental station has always had people sneaking in there, but they only installed security cameras some years ago. A big part of the problem is that the experimental station only has an open house like once every 10 years or so! I think if they were a bit more sharing with the community this would cut down quite a bit on unwanted visitors?
Unfortunately the police only pretend they are doing something about ag thefts, but in fact they do close to nothing. They view it as a very minor problem, and as they told me "have bigger fish to fry"..

[Mugenia]

How low can you go to resort to stealing fruit trees?

[Triloba Tracker]

Joe - that explains a lot, thanks for clarifying.

Yeah, I know Oscar has talked a lot about ag theft here before, which is why i thought it was odd that the police were involved THIS time....