The world may be your oyster, but that doesn’t mean you can just go around taking them.

A West Yarmouth man is facing charges related to the alleged theft of more than $40,000 in oysters and related equipment in Dennis and Barnstable last year.

The Boston Globe reports that nearly 25,000 oysters were stolen in the two separate heists.

The Cape Cod Times reports:

Michael Bryant, 37, was indicted by a Barnstable County grand jury Friday on six counts of larceny of property, a shellfish sales violation, shellfishing a contaminated area and a commercial fishing license violation. Bryant will be arraigned "in the upcoming days" in Barnstable Superior Court, according to a statement from Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe. "He's certainly been arrested many times," Barnstable police Lt. Sean Balcom said of Bryant. When Balcom said in January that the case was close to being solved, he noted that "where (the suspect) sold the oysters is going to come as a pretty big surprise." Joseph Vaudo, a 62-year-old Sandwich businessman who has owned Joe's Lobster Mart for more than 35 years, pleaded guilty Friday in Barnstable District Court to charges of receiving stolen property, willfully misleading police during an investigation and failure or refusal to file required statistical reports of wholesale and retail dealers.

Investigators were tipped off to the alleged arrangement by an informant, according to the Times.