German Thieves Make Off With 1,200 Beer Bottle Caps, Leave Beer Untouched

What would you do if you were faced with 1,200 bottles of beer? Probably not what these criminals did.

Thieves broke into an alcohol store in western Germany and stole the caps off of 1,200 unopened beer bottles, according to The Associated Press.

The break-in, which occurred near Muelheim an der Ruhr, took place on August 16. Essen police told the AP that the beers were Koenig Pilsner. The beers were surprisingly left untouched.

Police suspect that these cap thieves were taking advantage of a contest currently being conducted by Koenig Brewery. NBC News reports that the bottle caps have tokens printed on them for beer drinkers to win prizes like Bose speakers and a Black & Decker cordless drill. The suspects left all of the "good luck try again" caps on the ground.

It is assumed that there was more than one person involved in stealing the beer caps, considering the number of caps taken. There are no known suspects yet.

Marc Baron, a spokesman from Koenig Brewery, told NBC News that he found it "quite incredible" that someone would go through such lengths for bottle caps. "We have no way to track where the bottle caps were sold or in this case stolen, but we will now watch for someone who sends in an unusually high number of caps," Baron said.