The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants*.
A former employee has been arrested for robbing a Des Moines KFC assistant manager preparing a bank deposit Saturday morning. Shaun Michael Haltiner, 22, of Des Moines was booked into the Polk County Jail about 2 p.m. on a first-degree robbery charge, according to the Des Moines Register.
The unidentified manager was sitting in his car outside the KFC at about 10:45 a.m., organizing a $900 cash bank deposit, he told police. A masked man, later identified as Haltiner, opened his car door and put a black handgun in his face, according to a police report cited by the newspaper.
In South China, meanwhile, a man has been caught trying to smuggle his pet turtle through security at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport by disguising it as a KFC burger.
The man, identified only by his Li surname, was headed for a China Southern Airlines flight to Beijing when X-ray scanner staff spotted “odd protrusions” from a fast food wrapper, according to a Guangzhou Daily newspaper report cited by the Telegraph.
“There’s no turtle in there, just a hamburger,” Li reportedly told security staff after initially refusing a bag search. “There’s nothing special to see inside.”
Li eventually admitted he didn’t want to be separated from his pet, so he hid the turtle in a sesame seed bun and packaged it in KFC paper. The turtle was eventually freed and Li was told it wasn’t allowed on the plane.
(Note: the photo illustration above is neither the fake sandwich nor the real turtle.)
* Yum has 43,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in nearly 140 countries; Papa John’s has 4,900 outlets in 37 countries, and Texas Roadhouse has 485 restaurants across the U.S. and in five other nations. With that many locations, crimes inevitably occur — with potentially serious legal consequences for the companies.
Earlier today, news emerged that Amazon’s office has been searched by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission over its dealings with merchants who sell goods through the retailer, a person with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg. The antitrust agency is looking into whether Amazon sought deals with sellers that gave it more favorable conditions over other e-commerce companies in one of its biggest foreign markets. It wasn’t immediately clear when the JFTC inquiry took place (
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