Valley Detectives Crack the Case After 42,000 Pounds of Pistachios Go Missing

Valley detectives say they’ve solved the curious caper of the purloined pistachios.

The heist was a nutty one, but nothing new to investigators in America’s most productive farmland. In a nutshell, an audit by the Touchstone Pistachio Company in the San Joaquin Valley discovered that 42,000 pounds were missing.

Alberto Montemayor

(GV Wire Publisher Darius Assemi is one of Touchstone’s owners.)

Ag Crimes Unit Cracks the Case

The company contacted the Tulare County sheriff’s agricultural crimes unit on Thursday, the sheriff’s office wrote in a Facebook post.

The trail led to parking lots in Delano, authorities said. Investigators found a tractor-trailer there on Friday containing the remaining nuts, which were returned to the Touchstone Pistachio Company.

Detectives determined that the pistachios were being transferred from their 2,000-pound sacks into smaller bags for resale, the sheriff’s office said.

Alberto Montemayor, 34, of Montemayor Trucking was arrested, according to the post. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.