When you hear the word cartel what comes to mind? When I was a kid it was Columbian drug cartels involved with cocaine. Nowadays you think of Mexican drug cartels. The last group of people you would want pissed off at you would be the cartels.

Is this true even when the cartel is involved with maple syrup? As reported in www.nytimes.com.

It was an inside job of sorts. Thieves with access to a warehouse and a careful plan loaded up trucks and, over time, made off with $18 million of a valuable commodity. The question is what was more unusual: that the commodity in question was maple syrup, or that it came from something called the global strategic maple syrup reserve, run by what amounts to a Canadian cartel.

Three men have been arrested so far in what is the planet’s greatest maple syrup theft of all-time. The theft happened in Quebec, a region that produced up to 75% of the world supply!

Does this sound a little like OPEC?

Quebec’s maple syrup industry sets strict quotas for producers and, in the case of maple syrup, requires them to sell their product through the federation.

The sap that becomes maple syrup after being boiled down often flows for only a short period each spring. Weather changes can introduce wild fluctuations in how much emerges from sugar maple trees.

To maintain stable and high prices, the federation stockpiles every drop its members produce beyond their quota. During bad seasons, it dips into that supply. Sounds like the oil industry to me.

With 2011 a bumper year for syrup production there was a lot to steal. Perhaps the cartels should implement mandatory 8-hour stop theft classes for all employees. Do you that would help?