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Men's Journal

The Greatest Whiskey Heists of All Time

Mike Gerrard
10 min read
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It's a classic movie story. A bunch of thieves come out of retirement to commit one last crime. It's going to be the heist of all heists. Except they make one fatal mistake that leads to them being tracked down and captured.

In real life, it's more likely to be a small-scale human story, where a petty thief walks into a liquor store, grabs the first bottle of hooch he sees, and makes a run for it—only to be identified when crystal-clear security footage is broadcast all over the local evening news.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, January 2015

One guy in Toronto calmly walked into a liquor store and managed to take a rare bottle of 50-Year-Old Glenfiddich Single Malt from a cabinet of rare and vintage whiskies. He then picked up a bottle of cheap wine and calmly walked to the counter. No, not to offer to pay for the whisky, but to pay for a cheap bottle of wine he’d picked up after concealing the Glenfiddich in his trench coat and draping it over his shoulder, like Joe Cool. He deserved his smirk at the security camera as he walked out.

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The bold crime happened just before 2pm on Sunday, April 7, 2013. The waterfront Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) store was at 2 Cooper Street and Queens Quay, and it's not known whether the man managed to pry open the cabinet or if, to the thief's good fortune, a member of staff accidentally left it unlocked on the very day he'd planned his visit. Or was there a little inside help? No one will ever know. The theft wasn't even noticed till the following day, and then the customer with the trench coat draped over his shoulder was remembered.

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What happened to the counter staff afterwards is not recorded, though the LCBO did say, not surprisingly, that they had subsequently reviewed their display practices for more expensive spirits. If any of the staff had their pay docked it would certainly have stung, as the bottle, one of only 50 released worldwide, had a price tag of $26,000. No doubt afterwards the guy toasted his brazen success by opening the cheap bottle of wine. The whiskey was probably laid away as an investment or had been stolen to order for a collector.

Police issued a thorough description of the suspect, as well as the security camera photo. He was white, around five feet 10 inches tall, and about 35 to 40 years old—so at least ten years younger than the whisky. He was clean shaven and last seen wearing black frame glasses, black jeans, a plaid Burberry shirt, a brown hat, and carrying a brown trench coat. Glenfiddich issued an equally thorough description of the whisky as being “pale gold...[with] a beautifully harmonious, uplifting, vibrant and complex aroma...with a touch of dry oak and the merest trace of peat [on the finish].” Despite such rich details, neither man nor whisky has ever been tracked down.

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The LCBO had been created in 1927 as a way of easing the restrictions of prohibition, which had been introduced in Canada in 1916. Although national prohibition ceased in 1920, individual provinces were slower to act. Ontario ended prohibition in 1927, and Prince Edward Island not until 1947. The LCBO still operates almost 700 stores today and remains one of the world's largest buyers of alcoholic beverages.

Related: This Bottle Was Bourbon’s Greatest Mystery—and Worth a Fortune. Then They Drank It

Montreal, Québec, Canada, January 2015

Given the state monopoly on alcohol, perhaps it's not surprising that Canadians have developed a habit of stealing their liquor. A less-subtle case than the Toronto heist happened in Montreal in January 2015. There, another guy walked into another LCBO liquor store mid-morning and threatened staff and customers with a handgun that may or may not have been real.

He helped himself to the most expensive bottle of whiskey on the shelves, a 1962 Balvenie, of which only 88 bottles were ever produced. The one that was stolen was the only one left in all of Canada, and worth a cool $50,000. The thief took a few cheaper bottles for good measure (presumably to drink), and walked off into the streets, never to be apprehended.

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 1999

Most whiskey thieves know what they're after. A bottle of Bowmore Single Malt worth almost $12,000 disappeared from an Edmonton liquor store in 1999.

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The Islay whisky had been distilled in 1955, but the single cask was only discovered at the distillery 40 years later. A cask might seem a large thing to lose, but it does happen when distilleries may have tens of thousands of them, and they get moved around to other warehouses from time to time. This particular cask produced a mere 294 bottles. This clearly made it a collector's item, though the person who collected this particular bottle was never found, despite leaving a blood sample behind when he broke into the store to steal the Scotch.

Jasper Avenue in downtown Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.<p>Getty Images&semi; Nur Photo</p>
Jasper Avenue in downtown Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Getty Images; Nur Photo

That particular whiskey enthusiast got thirsty in the early hours of New Year's Eve 1999 and smashed his way into the store on Jasper Avenue in downtown Edmonton. He knew exactly what he wanted because, despite the temptations of thousands of bottles of spirits, wines, and beers, including expensive French cognacs, he took only the one bottle of Bowmore. He did, though, omit to take the bottle's certificate of authenticity.

The thief may therefore have found it hard to dispose of (at least legitimately), or had taken it ransom, as the store owner later received a mysterious phone call offering to reveal the bottle's whereabouts for $4,000. The caller said there was more than one thief involved, and that they had been hired specifically to steal that bottle. The owner declined the offer, though by then he had taken the precaution of placing a different rare bottle of Bowmore that he owned under lock and key, and hidden from public view.

The distillery offered an all-expenses-paid trip from Canada to Islay for information leading to the safe recovery of the bottle, though this was never taken up. The offer's still there, by the way.

Avonbridge, Scotland, July 2016

Not everyone gets away with it. Kenneth McLean of Avonbridge near Falkirk in Scotland, halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, was found with almost $48,000 of stolen whisky in his attic. Police had received a tip about the booze, which turned out to be 57 bottles that had been stolen from a warehouse owned by the spirits corporation Diageo. The warehouse was in Grangemouth, eight miles from Avonbridge, and had been broken into in July 2016. The haul included nine bottles of a 37-year old Port Ellen worth $3,000 each and seven bottles of Brora worth $2,100 each.

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When the police quizzed him about the bottles, McLean claimed he had bought them in cash from an unknown person with a view to selling them in several years' time when their value should have appreciated. None of the bottles had had the duty paid on them, though, so it was illegal to buy and sell them in any case.

He also later told a different story to some social workers who were reviewing the case: that he had accepted them in lieu of rent of $1,700 owed to him by one of his tenants. They no doubt tried to keep a straight face when McLean also told them he had no idea they were stolen. He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service for being in possession of stolen goods. So, McLean didn't get away with it, but he must have been tight-lipped, as the original thieves were never apprehended.

Aberdeenshire, Scotland, June 2014

Neither was the gang that broke into the gift shop at the Glenglassaugh Distillery in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in June 2014. The closest anyone could come to pinning down the time was that it was sometime after 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 10, when the gift shop closed for the day, and 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 11, when it re-opened and staff found the place ransacked.

The thieves took over $12,000 in goods, including a 37-Year-Old Glenglassaugh worth $445 and a 40-Year-Old worth $1,435. To make things worse, the thieves also helped themselves to some of the branded merchandise on offer, including sweaters. Walking round proudly advertising a brand of whisky whose premises you've recently broken into really does add insult to injury. The thieves also stole four pot stills, presumably to sell rather than to start their own distillery.

Related: This Rare Booze Hunter Bought a Shuttered Liquor Store. It Could Be His Biggest Score Yet—or His Worst Letdown Ever

River Edge, New Jersey, September 2017

Not all spirits heists are by people who know what they want, though. Four guys walked into a Total Wine in New Jersey in September 2017, and although they walked out with around $52,000 in high-end whiskeys, they also left behind a $42,000 bottle that was in the same cabinet.

Criminals stole over $50,000 of liquor from a Total Wine in New Jersey.<p>Getty Images&sol;Bloomberg</p>
Criminals stole over $50,000 of liquor from a Total Wine in New Jersey.

Getty Images/Bloomberg

When they walked into the store, the men took two shopping trolleys, although they didn't browse the shelves like regular shoppers. The two trolleys were used to block the views of other shoppers, while one of the robbers popped open the locked case and helped himself to bottles of Tullibardine 1952 worth $28,000, Highland Park 50-year-old worth $22,000, and The Macallan V5 Reflexion worth $1,900. Perhaps for a laugh, he also took a more modest $68 whiskey called Pinch Scotch. The thieves put the bottles into a white bag and calmly walked out, leaving Total Wine to review their security procedures. The missing whiskey and unlocked cabinet weren't even noticed till the following day.

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The men were never caught, but police believed they were part of a Chilean criminal gang who carried out a series of robberies of all kinds of expensive goods, not just whiskey. In addition to video surveillance footage, the guy who forced open the cabinet left behind some fingerprints. From these, the police issued a warrant for the arrest of Angel Hernandez Silva. Unfortunately, that was only one of at least four names he used. The man showed up in Texas and was arrested there for shoplifting a $2,400 purse, but under a different name, Bryan Gonzalez, and using a Puerto Rican driver's license. He was released on bail before the Texas police saw the warrant from New Jersey. He was never seen again.

Chicago, December 1957

One of the biggest whiskey robberies of all time inevitably involves the mob. On December 30, 1957, a truck was driving from Louisville, the bourbon capital of Kentucky, to Chicago with 875 cases of bourbon on board. The truck was hijacked and the cases were split between various mob-owned bars and restaurants. In today's money, the haul would have been worth over $550,000. The largest share of 400 cases went to a place in Chicago called the Cafe Continental, owned by Gerald Covelli and David Falzone.

The names Falzone and Covelli had been linked to several crimes, including murder, but this time the police were able to pin the crime on them. You might be able to hide a body, but it's harder to hide 400 cases of bourbon. However, the jury could only reach an 11-1 verdict of guilty, so the duo was acquitted. Later, though, the one juror who held out for an innocent verdict admitted that he had been paid and Covelli was later charged with jury tampering.

Covelli was then involved in another case of whiskey smuggling in 1962, and this time he turned state evidence and three men were sentenced to seven years each for conspiracy. Covelli was in prison himself at the time on charges of car theft, and when he was released he moved to Encino in California. As he left his home there in June 1967, a remotely-controlled bomb exploded under his seat and decapitated him.

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Well, we all know that too much alcohol is bad for your health.


In Mike Gerrard's latest book, Behind Bars: True Crime Stories of Whiskey Heists, Beer Bandits, and Fake Million-Dollar Wines, he tells stories both ancient and urgent of what happens when alcohol meets crime, from illicit stills in the Scottish Highlands to moonshine in the U.S., rum smuggled by Caribbean pirates to the roaring times of Prohibition, current-day gangs selling millions of dollars’ worth of fake Bordeaux, and the often-unsolved cases of people walking into a liquor store, stealing whiskey bottles worth tens of thousands of dollars, and walking out, never to be seen again.

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