On the docks of Bayonne where mobsters run the city, New Jersey police are investing a series of crimes in an investigation they call Operation Missing Link. No, they’re not investigating a murder, or even a large-scale burglary, but rather a simple crime, committed in the heat of passion.
The crime? A stolen 50 cent piece of sausage and a $2 bottle of iced tea.
Investigators were hot on the trail of the salsich thief, conducting countless interviews, filling out piles of paper work and taking endless crime scene photos.
The police in charge, the Waterfront Commission, is same agency responsible for policing the city’s docks for mob activity.
But not everyone believes in the cause, like New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak, who said, “It’s like Capt. Queeg and the strawberries. It’s a $2.50 ongoing investigation.”
A source close to the New York Daily News went as far as to say, “The whole investigation is bull—-. It’s a waste of manpower, money and resources.”
To give the critics some credit, Bayonne sees around $200 billion worth of stolen and illegal goods coming and going through its ports, raising concerns of whether this investigation is a good use of taxpayer money.
Still, the Commission went so far as to order a second probe into the theft when higher ups claimed the investigation had been handled poorly.
Unsurprisingly, sources say that even the crime’s victims didn’t think the eventual arrest of the perpetrator was fully necessary.
But Waterfront Commission General Counsel Phoebe Soriel warns naysayers not to be so sure, “While the commission does not comment on pending investigations, it takes any theft in the port seriously – especially theft involving extortion.”
Perhaps the Commission’s vigilance in the case of the missing link has something to do with the 2009 allegations written in a 60-page report for misusing Homeland Security Money, claiming the Commission was home to corrupt execs in bed with the city’s mobsters and wasting money watching Internet porn.
Maybe this “over vigilance” is an outward example of the Commission’s commitment to change. Or at least, their commitment to giving the impression of change.
The salsich thief case has only further damaged the Commission’s reputation among cops, dock workers and pretty much the entire State of New Jersey.
(Via New York Daily News)
