DAN’S PAPERS
danshamptons.com
January 11, 2013 Page 19
The Heist Twenty Million Gallons of Maple Syrup Are Stolen from a Warehouse By Dan Rattiner
Y
ears ago, a bunch of Quebec maple syrup farmers realized there was a problem with the pricing of the stuff. Like all sorts of other commodities, the price went up or down depending on supply and demand. Some years, when the trees produced little syrup, it went up. Other years when the harvest was abundant, it went down. On the other hand, there were years when there was little at the harvest and the prices unexpectedly went down, and that was a painful lesson for them indeed. There was no telling what the price of this precious commodity would do. But at the same time, the farmers had to live and feed their families every day. In the 1980s, therefore, some of the farmers, noticing what OPEC was doing with oil demand, supply and prices, decided to put together a maple syrup cartel. They actually could do this all by themselves, without involvement of any other countries. Quebec produces nearly 75% of all maple syrup in the world (that’s the syrup that goes on three of four pieces of French Toast worldwide). The organization they put together was the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (FQMSP), which began tightly regulating price and supply in 1989. Those joining it, and almost all farmers in that province did, would be given a maple syrup quota every spring. The quota would be decided upon by the FQMSP based on weather, supply, demand and price. Although other countries, including the United States, objected, there was nothing they could do. Quebec had a stranglehold on maple syrup in the world. All went well for a number of years. The FQMSP would hold maple syrup off the market to make prices go up. FQMSP would release barrels of
maple syrup stockpiled in its warehouses to make prices go down. In 2011, however, a group of Canadian maple farmers got together one night to plan and execute a vast maple syrup heist. It would be done on the sly. It would make millions for each of them. And the theft of what they expected would be 10 million pounds of maple syrup might not even come to the notice of the maple syrup cartel for years, by which time they would be long gone. They’d be rich.
The gang thus disposed of nearly $16 million of maple syrup during the period of August 2011 to July 2012. The first thing the gang did was arrange to get close to what the cartel called its “strategic reserve.” The gang already knew where the reserve was, because the cartel, proud of itself for having cornered a world market, often bragged about where their hoard of more than 45 million pounds of maple syrup was kept. It was kept, they said in early 2011, under 24-hour armed guard in 100-pound metal barrels in two giant warehouses six miles southwest of Quebec City in the town of Saint-Louis-deBlandford. In fact they had recently increased the reserve—this was now an even bigger cushion—and they had rented most of a third warehouse in a shopping center near that town to accommodate it. How could they get close to all that stuff? The gang formed a fake business, bought lots of trucks with the name of the business on the side, and proceeded to rent the rest of that third warehouse. Trucks from FQMSP coming and going would be waved on through by the
guards; so would trucks with the logo on the side from that other company. They were okay, those people, though they often worked into the night. Busy people, this other company. Late at night, beginning in August of 2011, members of the gang were secretly siphoning out all the maple syrup in that third warehouse. Some barrels they refilled with water, according to some reports. Other barrels they just left empty. All the maple syrup they siphoned went into the big empty tanks of the trucks. And the trucks, full or partially full, would leave the warehouse before dawn and, waving to the guards, head out. Where did they go? The gang had all that figured out, too. They drove the maple syrup to a warehouse they had set up in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, at another dummy firm, which presented itself as a wholesaler for the maple syrup of non-Federation maple syrup farmers. There is a small maple syrup industry in New Brunswick. Many of those farmers never joined the cartel. The gang thus disposed of nearly $16 million of maple syrup during the period of August 2011 to July 2012, selling it at just under retail, until at that time an employee of the cartel whose job it was to check the barrels in the warehouses to see they were okay every six months sounded the alarm. He found barrels that were entirely empty. The cartel called the police. An investigation was begun by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in that month with the lead investigators coming from the unit Sûreté du Québec under the leadership of Lieutenant Guy Lapointe. No expense was spared in trying to solve this case and bring these criminals to justice. According to the Montreal Gazette, more than 100 agents were assigned to the case, and more than 300 people were questioned and 40 search warrants (Continued on page 24)