Pizza thieves try to sell stolen frozen pies to cops

Thieves who stole 80 frozen pizzas from a warehouse in a remote Alaskan village were arrested after they attempted to sell the pies to the police department, state troopers said.

Police “received their strongest investigative lead” when the two thieves phoned the police department in the village of Gambell, on an island in the Bering Sea, and attempted to sell the pizzas to on-duty officers, the Alaska State Troopers said in a dispatch.

Gambell residents John Koozaata, 29, and Lewis Oozeva, 21, broke into the Gambell Native Store Warehouse on Sunday and took five cases of frozen pizzas valued at more than $1,000, state police said.

Koozaata and Oozeva were arrested and transported to Nome pending arraignment on charges to include burglary and theft, troopers said.

Seventy-five of the 80 pizzas have been recovered.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Bill Trott)