Canada’s got its maple syrup gang, Brisbane area has its seafood thiefs.

Clare Armstrong of the Courier Mail reports more than $30,000 worth of seafood including prawns, crabs, Moreton Bay bugs and oysters was stolen from an external freezer at the Belvedere Hotel, Woody Point at about 1.45am on Wednesday.

Police said CCTV showed the thieves broke the lock on the freezer before loading more than 30 boxes of seafood into a white ute and fleeing the scene.

Belvedere General Manager Andrew Cox said the company had scrambled to replace all the stock in time for Christmas but it “could have been a total disaster”.

“These low-life people obviously don’t have any Christmas spirit at all … we ordered the seafood back in October but because of their actions more than 600 people almost had their Christmas lunch ruined,” he said.

Mr Cox said the seafood had only been delivered hours before the robbery, which appeared to have been carefully planned.