Police are trying to find who stole $1 million worth of celebrity-owned Santo tequila.
The San Francisco Chronicle said the stolen alcohol, produced by Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar was part of what seemed to be a targeted heist this month.
The trucks were hijacked on Nov. 9 in Laredo, Texas, Hagar’s spokesperson told the newspaper. One was scheduled to go to California while the other was supposed to go to Pennsylvania but neither arrived.
Fieri was told about the problem on Nov. 14 by logistics partner Johanson, which said the shipments had been “illegally double-brokered” to other companies.
Basically the logistics company accepted a bid from a company that was created to steal shipments, Forbes reported.
The trucks held more than 4,000 cases of tequila, or 24,240 bottles of Santo Blanco, reposado and 40 cases of a type that took 39 months to ferment called extra añejo, Forbes reported. That was all of the Extra Añejo Single Barrel produced.
Fieri told People magazine it was the best year for their company, adding, “now, whatever’s on the shelf is all people are going to get.”
The distiller is trying to replace what was stolen, but Fieri warns there will be a shortage of Santo Spirits this holiday season, the publication said.
Forbes reported that it could 40 days to restock.
The celebrity chief said that the heist may have been an attempt to damage the brand’s growth.
“I mean, one is one,” Fieri said. “But now you’ve got to have double the amount of people to pull off the double heist. It just seems so much riskier to take two trucks.”
Law enforcement officials said the alleged thieves probably used a GPS emulator to spoof the trucks’ tracking system.
“Basically, they spoofed everyone after picking up our tequila loads. The drivers were sending in fake pictures saying they were having breakdown problems with the trucks, and the tracking the shipping broker was receiving matched their stories,” Santo Spirits president Dan Butkus told Forbes. “As best we can tell, they waited till they crossed the United States border and were in Laredo to begin the theft. It wasn’t until the distributors called and reported that the trucks never arrived that we knew something was up. By then, it was too late; the trucks were gone, and the driver’s phones were disconnected. The whole operation was sophisticated.”
Fieri is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the trucks. He’s focused on getting the extra añejo back, which he called the “crown jewel.”
“You can’t reproduce something that takes four years to make,” Fieri said.
One truck was found in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Department said, according to Forbes. Crews were seen unloading it on a street in a known area for cargo thefts. The other truck is still missing.
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