Sébastien and his dad can’t believe it. Together, they manage a company specializing in pellets near Erquelinnes. But this Monday, they discovered that thugs had invited themselves to their home, literally looting a stock of products leaving for customers.
“It was fuel that had to leave during the day. They took the most expensive pallets, at 800 euros per pallet, so it’s a loss of 8,000 euros. We don’t have a big margin on the pellet in this moment, everything is now negotiated very hard”, tells us Sébastien Hocquet, the manager of the company. With the energy crisis, margins are less than €30 per pallet.
The thieves had planned their move, cutting off the surveillance cameras. They used at least two large vehicles and chained the routes to seize the loot. “We are on something well organized, which seeks to resell in parallel markets”regrets Sébastien, who finds himself in a very delicate situation. “We will not have pellets for everyone, 10 pallets means at least 10 people will not be delivered”he confirms.
A call was launched, with a reward, to recover the stolen bags. It is now necessary to replenish a stock and hope that these incidents will not happen once more.