7,000 Bugs, Spiders Taken in 'Unprecedented' Heist

Someone stole thousands of live spiders, scorpions and other exotic insects from a Philadelphia museum

(CNN)The long list of stolen items sounds like an arachnophobe's nightmare. Rhinocerous roaches. Six-eyed sand spiders. Red spot assassin bugs. Zebra tarantulas. Desert hairy scorpions. These rare insects are among 80 species of live crawly critters stolen from the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion last month in a bizarre and brazen crime that has produced plenty of suspects but no arrests.

The thieves cleaned out more than 80% of the museum's collection -- some 7,000 individual creatures, including whole colonies of roaches and other bugs -- a haul valued at $40,000.

To make matters worse, the theft appears to have been an inside job. Cambridge told CNN that security cameras show a handful of employees carrying boxes of insects from the building over several days beginning on August 21. "We know exactly who did this. They snuck out the back with all these boxes. We caught them on camera," he said. "They took all the stuff and then they didn't show up for their shifts."

Several of the thieves left a calling card, however: Their blue staff uniforms, stuck to a wall with a pair of knives. The museum plans to reopen by November 3, when the museum hosts an Oddities Expo.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/05/us/insects-theft-philadelphia-trnd/index.html