It was Monday night when a hapless truck driver innocently stopped for some rest at a service station just north of the Swedish town of Jönköping.

Blissfully unaware of the sticky situation he had got himself into, when he woke up the following morning he discovered that his truck’s container had been cut open, resulting in the theft of 600 boxes of chewing gum.

Incredibly, it seems the perpetrators are bubble gum bonkers, as they took the time to stake out the scene of the crime in order to make sure they came away with their confectionary of choice. More astonishingly still, this week isn’t even the first time bubble gum booty has been targeted in the area.

“They had actually cut a peephole in the hold first, so it was likely chewing gum they were after,” police spokesperson Tommy Thorngren told Swedish state broadcaster SVT.

“I don’t know of any other robberies like this, but some years ago we had a number of large shoplifting incidents where primarily chewing gum was stolen,” he added.

The investigators say they believe there is a market for the stolen sweets in other parts of Europe, though they stopped short of putting a street value on the contraband.  Police are currently chewing over the truck driver’s report of events, and at present have no suspects for the sticky stick-up.