BANGOR (AP) – Investigators are looking for thieves who have stolen more than $20,000 worth of live lobsters from wharves in eastern Maine while wearing ski masks or hoods to avoid being identified on surveillance cameras.

Two people have been recorded on security cameras paddling a small boat in the dark of night up to Thurston’s Lobster Pound in Tremont on Mount Desert Island. Camera also caught thieves at the Cranberry Isles Fishermen’s Co-op on Little Cranberry Island, said Maine Marine Patrol Sgt. John Williams.

At each dock, the culprits wore gloves and ski masks or large hoods over their bowed heads as they loaded four or five crates of lobster onto a stolen boat and then rowed quietly away.

Thurston’s has been hit three times in the past month, and the Cranberry Isles theft occurred on April 14. The Stonington Lobster Co-op, which also has a security camera, has been raided three times in the past month by burglars who were also wearing hoods to conceal their identities, Williams said.

In all, more than 40 crates, each weighing about 90 pounds, were stolen. With lobsters going for $5.50 to $6.50 a pound, each crate was worth an estimated $500 or more.

The thieves seem to know what they are doing, carefully picking through the crates and taking only those packed with lobsters rather than less-valuable crabs, Williams said.

“I believe these people are connected to the fishing industry somehow,” Williams said. “I believe they are local people.”

Thieves two years ago stole thousands of pounds of lobsters valued at $30,000 from lobster dealers in Stonington, Milbridge and Addison. Two men were later charged after police received a tip they had sold the stolen lobsters in Portland.

Williams said he’s confident police will get a tip on these thefts as well.

“Somebody out there knows what’s going on,” he said. “People are buying these lobsters, and that’s a lot of lobster.”

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