What do you think of this fact?
Some countries keep a strategic oil reserve. Quebec keeps a strategic maple syrup reserve. And yes, someone robbed it.
A warehouse full of liquid gold
The reserve is run by the Quebec maple syrup producers’ federation, which, according to Mental Floss, oversees about 75 percent of the world’s maple syrup supply. It was set up in 2000 and expanded in 2011 after a syrup surplus. By 2012, one of its warehouses in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford held around 16,000 barrels worth about 30 million Canadian dollars in total.
The warehouse had no security cameras. That turned out to matter.
Syrup out, water in
From 2011 to 2012, a group of thieves quietly siphoned syrup out of the full barrels into their own containers. Then they topped the emptied barrels up with water and put them back in place, so the stacks still looked complete. In total, about 2,700 tonnes of syrup vanished, roughly six million pounds, worth nearly 18 million Canadian dollars. The syrup was sold on through New Brunswick and ended up in Ontario and the United States.
The scheme fell apart in July 2012 during a routine inventory. A man counting the barrels climbed up a stack, and one barrel nearly tipped over under him. It was empty. Soon, more empty barrels turned up, and others that contained nothing but water.
Detectives on a sticky case
The Sûreté du Québec treated it as an inside job. Investigators interviewed hundreds of people and issued 40 search warrants. Four men were eventually convicted, and the alleged ringleader, Richard Vallières, was sentenced to seven years and ten months in prison. Only part of the stolen syrup was ever recovered.
Bonus fact: According to Global News, one barrel of the syrup was worth about 13 times as much as a barrel of crude oil.
So the most daring heist in Quebec’s recent history came down to a hose, a lot of water and a barrel that wobbled at the wrong moment.