Wine, Legs, Parakeets, and the All-Important Secret Sauce

We've got wine heists and Lego heists (tell me that doesn't sound like a party!) and the always good smuggling story (Cue the joke: "Is that a parakeet in your pants or are you just happy to see me?"), but this month we've got something different and unusual (for this monthly feature, at least): an honest to goodness protection of assets story.

But first, our usual disclaimer: Security is serious, and security-adjacent news stories typically have victims. Even though we treat these stories with a lighter touch, we do not want to diminish any suffering the stories caused.

Someone stole some wine bottles, big deal? Ok, sure. But what if the wine was valued at $38,000? What if the theft was a scheme perpetuated by a couple—one a woman with rapid-fire questions, the other wearing an overcoat and carefully roaming inside and outside visual range? What if it involved a daring escape and high-speed chase? Finally, what if the whole thing happened at the establishment where this writer celebrates his wedding anniversary every year? Yes, that qualifies for strange security.

Another day, another man tries to smuggle an animal in his pants: That’s right, sometimes when you work security at the border, you have to questions like, “What’s with that suspicious bulge in your pants?” To spare our own blushes, we’ll let The Washington Post describe the result: “He claimed that the protrusion was natural—using a Spanish word for a male appendage.”

Now that’s a Lego obsession: But when your obsession turns to crime, you’re going to get busted. Authorities arrested a California man who was paying people to steal Lego sets, which he would turn around and try to sell. The police said he had tens of thousands Legos, which frankly doesn’t sound like that many—like I might have had that many in my youth, and I was no organized Lego crime boss. But the photos do show a house pretty well packed, so there’s an obvious difference.

A pair of security-adjacent things that simply should not happen: In Thailand, workers at a Buddhist temple were assisting with a funerary service when they heard a knocking from inside a coffin set for the crematorium. And in Portland, Oregon, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration was investigating how a passenger was allowed to board a Delta flight with a meat cleaver.

And our top security article of the month:

Protecting trade secrets, no matter the costs: There may not be a higher-stakes competition in the corporate world than the competition for the best fast-food chicken. Enter the story from The Wall Street Journal, which details the lengths that Raising Cane’s goes to to keep the recipe for its sauce secret. No, it is not Thousand Island dressing. It’s 11 herbs and spices that you’ll need some serious information security hacks to get a hold of.

Other stories that caught the eyes of our editors in recent weeks:

Iowa woman arrested on burglary charge after being found stuck between the walls of a business

Sixty years after tourist stole skull from cathedral, he sends it back

Parking inspector and wife arrested for €1m meter theft

And finally, this one has to make it, in honor of Security Management’s editor-in-chief: A stolen 50-pound dinosaur named Clair is returned after outrage (Now where did that silent "e" on the end of the name go?)