Is "Catfish stealing" a thing?

This is going way back - early '90s, but I've always been curious about this event. My boss at the time had an incredible piece of property around Poplarville. It was 180 acres with white-fenced pasture for his Beefmaster cattle, rolling hills, wooded areas, had a bass pond large enough to put my SeaDoos in (which we did) which was full of virtually unlimited 5+ lb. bass, and a couple catfish ponds that were very well stocked. The catfish ponds bordered a hillside, so there was a drain pipe down the decline that, when opened, could drain the entire ponds. My boss was killed in an auto accident, so it was at least several weeks before his wife went back up to their property (it was just a weekend place for them). When she got there, the catfish ponds had been drained and all the catfish were stolen. There was a caretaker and his son that also lived on the property, so I always assumed that it was an inside job by him. Maybe he felt like he wasn't paid enough over the years and decided to stick it to the boss man after he was gone and figured the wife wouldn't care. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this, or is this a one-off kind of thing? I don't know what catfish go for wholesale, but I'd think a couple ponds worth drew a decent payoff for an old country boy.