Authorities have completed an ongoing investigation, arresting the key players in a conspiracy involving multiple high profile executives from various candle companies. The conspiracy was uncovered after months of investigation, beginning when people began purchasing live trees in anticipation for the holiday season.

Indianapolis Holiday Police officer Kris Coal was in charge of the operation, going undercover as a seasonal worker at Wick Industries. He’d been undercover for a year when IHPD had enough information to bring the proper people to justice.

“It was very difficult not to say something throughout this entire awful situation,” Coal said. “It made me sick to see how these huge corporations manipulated innocent, unsuspecting people during these joyous holidays.”

Suspicions started surfacing in late November 2017 when homeowners reported that their live trees started suddenly losing their needles. All live tree owners had said that they took the utmost care of their trees, yet every single needle fell off, leaving their homes a mess and their Christmas spirit in tatters.

“I was so sad and confused when my tree started losing needles,” homeowner Noel Jefferson said. “Pretty soon all the needles were gone and I had to scramble to find another solution.”

Companies such as Wick Industries then collected the needles and trees from the distraught homeowners, buying them for ridiculously low prices now that their aesthetic value plummeted. Grinding up the pine trees and needles, the corporation manufactured candles that smelled like the very essence of the holidays. They then sold the candles back to citizens across the country desperate to bring festive cheer to their homes.

“The trees are worthless now. No shame in buying them from unhappy people and making good out of the situation.” head of Wick Industries Albert Scrooge said.

During Officer Coal’s time undercover as a factory worker at Wick Industries production warehouse, he collected information from other workers on their working conditions and on how the company had engineered a virus to infect healthy, live trees. The blow to the live tree industry forced producers of plastic trees to push their workers into manufacturing more trees than ever before.

It was then revealed that plastic tree producers were in on the candle plot, sacrificing their workers health and wellbeing for the sake of increased profit and sales.

“We’d work 10-12 hour days with less breaks in between shifts than usual,” an anonymous factory worker for Holiday Lumber Inc. said. “During the holiday season, the boss would let us go home early to be with our families. This year they didn’t even let us outside to see the first snow.”

Conspiracy between the candle and plastic tree industries began after Scrooge suggested they do something to increase demand for candles and artificial trees. The groups then plotted to sabotage family owned tree farms and force consumers to overpay for the iconic pine-scented candles everyone loves so much during the holidays.

After accusations came to light pointing Scrooge out to be the mastermind of this debacle, sources say a trial will be held in early 2019 on charges of embezzlement, fraud and money laundering.

Officer Coal has stated that he’s willing to come forward with more information when the safety of him and his family is guaranteed. Charges against artificial tree producers have not been filed and it is unknown if any will be set during the proceedings of the Wick Industries trial.