Blundering thieves who stole a truck loaded with shortbread stalled as they tried to make their getaway – because they filled it with the wrong fuel.
The hapless gang broke into a yard and used the lorry to smash open the gates as they fled with a consignment of the Walkers biscuits.
But they only managed to travel half a mile before the truck spluttered to a stop.
Police investigating the theft are trawling through CCTV images to try to identify the four culprits.
They targeted the Caledonian Logistics premises at Kintore in Aberdeenshire and stole the lorry and trailer loaded with 16 crates of Walkers Shortbread – worth up to £20,000.
They abandoned the truck when it broke down near the firm’s base at the Midmill industrial estate.
The incident happened just a week comes after a lorry loaded with prawns worth £60,000 was stolen from Laeso Fish in Peterhead.
The container was later found in the Bolton area, but the thieves escaped with more than 11 tonnes of unprocessed shellfish.
A police spokeswoman said officers were keeping an “open mind” about the thefts, but said they did not appear to be linked.
Jim Walker, managing director of Aberlour-based Walkers, said: “It was a full trailer of shortbread of ours, worth nearly £20,000.
“It’s a big relief that it was recovered and the shortbread has now been transported to our customer.”
Derek Mitchell, managing director of Caledonian Logistics, said he had been alerted to the drama after his operations manager passed the truck at the end of the road as he headed to work.
He said: “Thankfully the truck only got less than half a mile away, mainly because they filled the diesel tank with the wrong product.
“We’ve now recovered the truck and are having the engine flushed out.
“We recovered the truck and the trailer of shortbread.
Mr Mitchell said his team had worked out how the gang got into the yard and would be stepping-up security to prevent a repeat of the incident.
Police have urged anyone who saw anything suspicious in the Kintore area on Saturday to get in touch.