OSLO: Two Swedes have been arrested by Norwegian police for smuggling more than 250kg of butter into the country, offloading one consignment for more than £25 a packet.
The two men, from the Northern city of Umea, managed to make their first delivery before a police patrol stopped their van on Saturday evening.
“They allegedly sold the coveted butter packets in Beitstad Steinkjer before they drove north along the county road 17,” police officer Lars Letnes told Norway’s Adresseavisen newspaper.
“Then they were stopped by a police patrol, which found 250kg of butter in the small van.” A sudden spike in demand has left Norway with a butter shortfall of between 500 and 1,000 tonnes, leaving the country’s citizens facing Christmas without their seven traditional varieties of home-cooked biscuit.
Swedes have posted nearly 100 adverts on the local auction website Blocket offering to drive butter across the border at prices ranging from £20 to above £50 a pack.
The poster of one of the adverts, Yusuf, from Gothenburg, told the Daily Telegraph that he was now making two trips a week to service clients in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, but refused to give more details.
