Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.

You can't prove what tree the syrup came from, stated one of the accomplices in the Great Canadian maple Syrup heist during his trial.

Beginning in twenty eleven, a group of thieves siphoned pure maple syrup from thousands of white metal barrels stockpiled in Quebec, Canada.

Now we didn't know, and maybe you didn't either, that Canada exports a liquid that has been as much as twenty five times more expensive than crude oil, and that's maple syrup.

At the time of this heist, grade A syrup, the most popular type, was trading at about thirty two dollars per gallon, which added up to eighteen hundred dollars a barrel, which is roughly thirteen times the price of crude oil at that time.

Imagine the payoff if you sold stolen maple syrup on the black market.

We're about to find out.

Welcome to Criminalia.

I'm Maria Tremarky and.

I'm Holly fry So.

Before we get into the sticky business of the heist, let's talk maple stuff.

Maple products are big business in Canada, and they export syrup and related goods to more than seventy countries.

You'll find sparkling maple water, maple butter and jams, sugar candy, porn, crub, vinegars, coffees and spirits.

You can even find maple perfume.

Maple syrup has even been to space.

But no matter how popular it is, this liquid gold is really simply just tree sap from maple trees.

There are a few species of maple trees, but because of their high sugar content, maple syrup comes from red maple and sugar maple forests, forests that grow in the upper right hand corner of North Americabec.

Canada sits prominently in that location, and the province produces between seventy and eighty percent of the world's maple syrup.

It starts with the sap.

Sap is harvested between late winter and spring.

The most important factor here is the temperature.

SAP won't flow through the trees unless temperatures are exactly right.

When they rise above freezing, it creates pressure that forces the sap out of what's called a taphole.

Producers drill holes into tree trunks and that is what the taphole is, and then using either buckets or tubing, they collect the sap, often with the aid of vacuum systems that speed the flow.

SAP has a high water content naturally, and after it's harvested, it's then evaporated at sugar houses.

And basically after that evaporation process, the remaining concentrated liquid is toa da maple syrup.

It takes forty gallons of SAP to make just one gallon of syrup once tapped.

Maple trees produce somewhere between nuns nine and thirteen gallons of raw sap each season, and a season can last up to eight weeks.

Because of the inherent unpredictability of a season.

In two thousand, an organization known as the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers established a strategic reserve officially known as the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve.

Today, it's three warehouses in Quebec collectively hold one hundred and thirty three million pounds of maple syrup.

Nicknamed the Fort Knox of Maple Syrup, the reserve acts like an emergency stockpile, so when syrup production exceeds demand.

Surplus maple syrup is pasteurized, preserved in food grid containers and stored in warehouses.

Alternately, when there's a poor harvest, barrels of syrup in the reserve are made available to Canada's domestic and international markets.

And with that process in place, there's always syrup to go around.

Plus, it also means that global prices remain more stable than if the market was left to the whims of other nature.

For the year twenty twelve, make note that's a year that's going to become important later in the story, the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers estimated its maple syrup production at ninety six point one million pounds, with a wholesale value of about two hundred and seventy million dollars.

Now just a quick note on this.

When we talk dollar amounts here, we're talking about amounts in Canadian dollars.

Approximately two thirds of bulk exports of syrup go to the United States, with the remainder ship to France, Germany, and Japan.

The United Kingdom and dozens of other countries.

Originally established in nineteen sixty six as the Federation of Quebec, Maple Syrup Producers, or just the Federation the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, as it has been known since twenty eighteen, is a federated organization that regulates the production and marketing of maple syrup from the Canadian province of Quebec.

The group sets production das and negotiates prices, authorizes who can and can't produce and buy syrup, and maintains the stockpile.

In February of two thousand and two, the organization became the central sales agency for all maple syrups sold in bulk from Quebec.

As well, they basically dominate the maple syrup market.

The organization charges storage fees at their facilities those warehouses you'd have to use if you were an approved producer with bulk syrup, and if you were an approved producer, you also were on the hook to pay twelve cents per pound of syrups sold.

At the time of the hest, there were seven thousand, three hundred approved producers in Quebec, with more than one thousand on a waiting list.

The group demands stiff penalties from producers and buyers who don't comply with their rules.

And their strong control and strict regulations have led to criticism and comparisons to organized crime.

In fact, this sup has disparagingly been called, among some quote the maple syrup cartel and the Quebec maple Syrup mafia.

Buyers and producers caught bypassing this system are hit with hefty fines.

Said Roland Champagne, a producer in Inverness, quote, we have a rotten system in Quebec.

Their rules led to a lot of frustration, and that frustration led some producers to sell the heavily regulated SAP and syrup on the black market.

Richard Valliere was one of those producers.

We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors.

When we're back, we'll talk about how the highest at the strategic reserve worked and how it was accidentally uncovered.

Welcome back to Criminalia.

Okay, let's talk about how this syrup went down.

Over the span of several months in twenty eleven and twenty twelve, someone or some ones managed to stage a multimillion dollar heist from the global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve following an inventory in July of twenty eleven.

A little More than sixteen thousand barrels of maple syrup were recorded as stored at a San Luis de Blanford warehouse, which is about two hours north of Montreal.

During the heist, nearly ten thousand barrels were emptied about three thousand tons of syrup, at a total of about eighteen million dollars worth of maple syrup.

It's one of the largest agricultural thefts ever and when discovered, it was suspected to be an inside job.

The idea for the heist began to cook shortly after actuaries for the Quebec maple syrup producers calculated that they needed to maintain reserves of forty million pounds of syrup.

The organization was busy building a secure facility to accommodate that amount, but in the meantime they were stockpiling syrup at a rented warehouse in San Luis de Blamford, where reportedly, and unfortunately, the security team was just one guard who checked in just once each day.

The building had no cameras and it also had no alarms.

In the fall of twenty eleven, the theft began.

Barrels were transported by tanker trucks to remote sugar houses where the syrup was siphoned out of them.

They were then refilled with water to avoid detection and return to the facility.

Eventually, the theaters began directly siphoning syrup from beryls at the reserve itself, sometimes without bothering to refill them.

The operation expanded as shipments reached the Canadian province of Ontario, as well as Vermont and New Hampshire in the United States.

The operational design of the crime has been called a mastery, and the distribution network setup have made some call this heist quote brilliant.

The resale also worked because the stolen syrup was specifically sold to legitimate buyers who knew nothing about its origins, and it sold at full market price per the original agreement among thieves.

Richard Valliere trafficked the syrup.

Richard had a reputation in the maple syrup industry of being what was called a barrel roller.

A barrel roller is a person who illegally buys and sells maple syrup, circumventing the regulated supply management system of the Quebec maple syrup producers.

A barrel roller and this is going to sound familiar.

Moves barrels of syrup from their assigned storage warehouse to a different location, where they siphon off the syrup and barrels are then refilled with water or another liquid, and then their return to the warehouse as if nothing ever happened.

Barrel rollers also buy and sell syrup from producers who want to avoid both official regulations and the work of selling it on the black market themselves.

In July of twenty twelve, an inspector conducting a routine annual check of the maple syrup stored at the San Luis de Blanford warehouse figured out that some of the barrels had been tampered with and he had just stumbled upon it too, literally, just by accident or luck.

Inspector Michelle Gavreau arrived at the warehouse on the morning of July thirtieth.

It was a huge brick building and inside were row after row of barrels filled with maple syrup stacked six high.

As he was climbing the stacks, Michelle came upon something fishy when one of the barrels just tipped over and he lost his balance.

The barrels of syrup should have been heavy enough to support his weight, but he would soon discover that he had found an empty barrel.

And then he found more empty barrels, at least as many as thirty upon a cursory inspection, and at that point he notified the Quebec maple syrup producers.

An examination of the entire stockpile was conducted.

Did inspectors wanted to find sweet brown liquid in every barrel, but they didn't.

Instead, in a lot of them, they found water.

The surretde to Quebec, the Quebec Provincial Police began an extensive investigation, aided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and United States Customs and Border Patrol.

What they discovered was a complex distribution network that spanned from Quebec to Ontario and into the United States, specifically Vermont and New Hampshire, states that bordered the province of Quebec.

Investigators were able to track some of the stolen syrup and found much of it had been brought into the United States.

Consumable goods like maple syrup, though, are nearly impossible to track.

The evidence they collected resulted in the arrest of several people, including Richard Valliere, who later admitted he had been active in the black market for at least a decade before the heist.

We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors, and when we're back, we'll talk about those considered to have been the heist insiders and their trial.

Welcome back to Criminalia.

The stolen maple syrup, with a market value of more than eighteen million dollars, went through the hands of several individuals before Richard sold it to unsuspecting buyers in Canada and in the United States.

He collected the proceeds and paid out to the various accomplices.

By his own admission, he allegedly earned ten million dollars in revenue from the resale of the stolen syrup and made a personal profit of just about a million dollars minus his expenses.

Investigators concluded the primary perpetrators were Richard Valliere, who authorities accused of being the ringleader of the operation of Vic Karen.

This guy, we're going to talk about him in a minute.

Etten Saint Pierre, a New Brunswick based syrup reseller.

Raymond Valier, that's Richard's father.

He was accused of possession and Sebastian Jutra, a truck driver involved in the transportation of stolen syrup.

On September twenty fifth, twenty twelve, Aten Saint Pierre, a maple syrup buyer and reseller, was confronted by authorities who accused him of buying stolen maple syrup.

Police eventually seized one point six million dollars worth of his syrup and equipment, and then on December seventeenth, an arrest warrant was issued for Richard Valliere, citing four counts of conspiracy to commit theft, fraud, trafficking, and possession for the purpose of trafficking in property obtained through the commission of a crime.

On December eighteenth, police arrested three more people, including Avek Karen.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In total, sixteen people were arrested in connection with the heist.

The trial involved multiple defendants, as Raymond's role was relatively a small one and his testimony kind of tiptoed into his thoughts about how he should have been a better father rather than anything criminal.

We're going to actually concentrate on the statements of Richard and a vic made to the jury.

The prosecution attempted to establish that Richard had been the mastermind and we're going to paraphrase a little here.

They argued he directed the operations of trafficking, received stolen goods, and exported the stolen syrup from the Saint Luis de Blanford warehouse, and that he fraudulently operated a quote black market in syrup purchased directly from Quebec producers, as neither Richard nor his intermediaries had paid the required dues that twelve cents per pound of syrup we mentioned at the top to the Quebec maple syrup producers.

Richard testified that while he had operated in the black market for syrup for more than ten years, he denied having participated in the actual warehouse robbery.

Additionally, he stated that he believed Karen and the Quebec maplesyrup producers were attempting to frame him.

He followed up that he remained involved in the heist only because of the death threats made against him by Karen.

Also in his statement, Richard named co accused at and Saint Pierre as a customer only to whom he sold and delivered syrup in New Brunswick, and actually none of the co accused testified that Saint Pierre was involved in theft or that he knew the origin of the syrup that Richard Bellierre was selling to him.

The prosecution estimated that Richard purchased ninety five deliveries that he planned to resell.

They were kind of close.

According to his own testimony, Richard stated that he had received between one hundred and one hundred fifty deliveries.

The thieves used fifty three foot tractor trailers to transport the stolen syrup shipments.

Each of those contained approximately forty five thousand pounds.

Jean Lord, who was also facing trial for involvement in the heist, testified that he worked as a day laborer and at the time he was a truck driver for Richard.

He stated he'd delivered five fifty three foot trucks of syrup to Etsyen, Saint Pierre's company sk Export from Richard Valier's warehouses in San Nicholas, where some barrels of stolen syrup were stashed.

Let's talk about Avik Karen.

His trial testimony paints a pretty good picture of the origins and organization of the operation.

The investigation revealed that Karen was the husband of one of four people who co owned the warehouse, and because of that relationship, he had inside information.

He knew the Quebec maple syrup producers were renting the space to store syrup and that the warehouse was unsecured.

Karen himself testified that he was the one who made the offer to Richard Valiere to get him in on the scheme of boosting barrels.

Karen told the jury that he was and introduced to Richard until shortly after the rented warehouse began housing syrup filled barrels.

That was through an accomplice named Sebastian Jutras.

Karen explained that he had met Richard in June of twenty eleven.

He wanted Richard to resell the stolen syrup on the black market.

The two men agreed on a sale price of the barrels and the heist was on.

It was orchestrated, so Karen and his associates were responsible for emptying the maple syrup barrels and refilling them with water.

As we've seen, though, they became less and less fastidious about those decoys as they carried out the heist eventually and accidentally exposing the entire operation.

The maple syrup that was withdrawn from the barrels that the warehouse was transferred either into different barrels or into plastic containers, and it was stored in other locations, including Richard's warehouses, as we learned in John Lord's testimony.

Sebastian later testified that after one syrup delivery, Richard commented on the heist in the Bigger Pictures, saying, quote, stealing from thieves is not stealing.

The theft, Karen claimed earned him upwards of four hundred and thirty thousand dollars, though police evidence suggests he received a much much greater amount, upwards of three and a half million dollars.

He stated that the syrup theft had stopped by the end of November of twenty eleven, and he claimed he only resumed the heist in twenty twelve due to pressure from the Rizzuto crime family, an Italian Canadian crime family based in Montreal.

The court, though, found no evidence to corroborate that the theft was carried out under the direction of such an organization, or that any such organization was involved at all.

Karen also claimed in his testimony that a senior member of the Quebec maple syrup producers demanded to be paid twelve thousand dollars for each one hundred barrels to keep quiet about the theft.

After two days of deliberations, the twelve member jury delivered its verdicts on November twelfth.

Richard and a Vic were both found guilty of theft, fraud and trafficking of property obtained by crime.

Both of them were fined.

Etienne was found guilty of fraud and trafficking of property obtained by crime.

Raymond guilty of possession of stolen syrup.

Richard and Raymond appealed their guilty verdicts Etienne appealed the jury's guilty verdict.

Sebastian had pleaded guilty and served several months in prison for his involvement, and Jean Lord that accomplish we mentioned earlier was acquitted of the charge of possession of stolen syrup for the purpose of trafficking.

Richard was sentenced to eight years in prison, plus he was given ten years to pay a nine point four million dollar fine or else face an additional six year prison term.

This was by far the toughest punishment among all defendants.

In twenty sixteen, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled that the fine was excessive and lowered the amount to one million dollars, which was the amount Richard claimed had been his profit from the theft.

The Supreme Court of Canada, though, reversed that decision just a few years later and reinstated the original fine.

Canada's Chief Supreme Court, Justice Richard Wagner, stated, quote, distinguishing between an offender's incommon expenses in order to determine the offender's profit margin would essentially amount to legitimating criminal activity.

After being turned down twice in twenty twenty two, Richard was granted day parole, stated Parole board member Luke Chamberlain, quote, you still have work to do to become aware of the elements that brought you to commit your crimes, but you have recently made a significant amount of awareness of the harm you've caused.

Richard told the parole board he joined the heist for its big profit potential, but that he had a second agenda.

He wanted to settle a grudge against the Quebec maple syrup producers.

He stated his involvement in the theft was motivated by his long history with the organization, stating quote, I had run ends with the Federation, and one day I'm being offered maple syrup and I knew it was stolen.

I really wanted revenge.

I wanted revenge because I had been pursued by the Federation.

I wanted revenge because they pursued me and had my house seized.

That remark was likely referring to a case that ended several years earlier, when Richard was fined more than one point eight million dollars by the Quebec Agricultural and Food Markets Board for selling maple syrup to unauthorized buyers.

He continued, quote, I thought I was superior or more intelligent than others.

I told myself I'd never get caught.

It came with consequences.

I ended up in a maximum security penitentiary.

He added that while serving his time, quote at the R.

Chambeau Institution, I saw a guy get killed over a pair, a fight over a pair.

So it's time for our cocktail segment for the season.

And here's the conceit that I have come up with for this one.

We're gonna call it boosted Bevies.

And the idea is that every drink that we make this season will be kind of based on an existing drink but changed up.

I like it, which honestly is often the case anyway, Like almost everything has been tried, right If you look at Jerry Thomas's cocktail book, it's hard to come up.

There are hundreds of drinks in it.

It's hard to really veer too far off of it, like something has been done before.

Yeah, I was.

I was happy that you weren't coming to the table with We're just gonna mix some syrup and some Canadian rye and I was gonna say no, thank you.

I mean almost almost.

Man, It's definitely a thing, it's for sure.

I think it's not my thing though.

Okay, so this one starts, but it goes off way off the base, So don't get excited if this is your drink.

It starts with the idea of an old fashioned, and an old fashion is a very simple drink, right it is.

There are a couple ways to make it.

The old old old school is a sugar cube, some angaster of bitters and a little water and you mix that together and then you add like an ounce and a half of bourbon to it, and you put it in a glass with a giant ice cube because you want as little dilution as possible.

So obviously we're gonna now you can't also use simple syrup in lieu of that.

Listen, people who leve old fashions will argue about which way is better, and really it's like people that like the the sugar cube, or even sometimes you can use like a spoonful of granulated sugar.

People who love that version, I think if you talk to them, what they like about it is that the drink kind of gets sweeter as you go, so the finish is quite sweet, but it's not as sweet throughout because even though you've stirred it and theoretically incorporated it, it's very hard to fully incorporate that granulated stuff in the small amount of liquid that you're starting with.

Some people will instead do a simple syrup in that case, and they'll add their angster of bitters to that and then add their bourbon.

That way, you get a more consistent drink throughout everything's already been mixed.

Listen, I'm not gonna say either way is right or wrong.

One way is the older way, and whatever way you like to drink it is great.

But for the purposes of this, because we're talking about maple syrup, we're gonna use maple syrup.

But I'm telling you it's gonna take a left turn.

You may or may not want to come with me, but I'm telling you that urn leads you to flavor town.

So you're gonna put a bar spoon of maple syrup in your glass, two to three dashes of angister of bitters.

I also put in a dash of water just to loosen up the maple syrup a little bit and let everything blend together.

And you're gonna stir that till it's pretty well incorporated.

And then you will add an ounce and a half of the bourbon of your choice.

I would go ahead, because we are doing it this way and put this is gonna be anathema when you find out the next thing that we're doing.

But again we're stealing from the old fashion.

So you'll put your large eye cube in there.

But then what you're gonna do, and again I know this is anathema, but I'm telling you it's very yummy.

Then you are going to add an ounce and a half of champagne or other sparkling wine.

This is so stupidly yummy.

It has no business being as tasty as it is.

Would nobody knows?

If you said that, and I immediately had two hands.

Up, yeah, yes, where is please?

Okay?

I will say if the idea of doing a pour over of champagne on an ice cube horrifies you.

If your old school, no problem.

Just put your other ingredients in a shaking tin, pour them into a pre chilled glass, and then add your champagne that will be already chilled.

That's fine.

But I like it with the ice cube because we're playing with an old fashioned.

I don't I don't know why this works so well.

It works so well.

I love it.

I love an old fashioned, and so I'm like, okay, well, how can you change it and make it still good?

So I am the second we knew were half we were on, I was with you.

Oh my goodness, there's something so lovely about this.

The maple syrup is not a heavy component in terms of flavor, but it's there, and it's almost like, you know, a very very alcoholic champagne cocktail.

At that point, it's very yummy.

I guess it is Yeah, for the mock tail, you're gonna use your barspoon and maple syrup, two to three dashes of bitters, a dash of water if you need it, an ounce and a half of black tea, and I would add a pinch, just a pinch of white pepper to that.

White pepper is usually a good bit more powdery than black pepper when you buy it like at the market, and so it incorporates into liquids really easily.

And it also has a unique flavor, so you're gonna use that instead of your bourbon.

An ounce and a half and then an ounce and a half of a light ginger ale.

Also very yummy.

That's a good summer drink.

Also, I know I say it's a good summer drink.

After everything, this one is a very good summer drink.

Summer.

It's a good it is.

Listen said, it's quite hot here right now, but that is I'm calling this drink the tap hole just because that phrase sounds funny to me, and I want joy wherever I can find it right now, So listen, I'll order seven tapholes.

That'll be fine for me.

Some of the slang.

It's very very yummy, it's super duper yummy, and I can't wait to see what else we come up with this season in the realm of all of these miscellaneous heists, many of which are food related coming this season, so we'll see what flavors make it into drinks and which ones.

Don't Listen, We have cheese coming up.

I don't know how that's gonna land, but something's gonna happen.

We have cheese, we potentially later in the season we may have ice.

So there's things to there.

Seems to work with here, and hopefully we will come up with a lot of fun and potentially unexpected variations on drinks you already maybe know and love, maybe you don't love them, and we can find a way to make them more palatable to you.

So we'll see what happens.

We're all on this adventure together.

We are so grateful that you have been here with us as we jump into this new season.

We will be right back here next week with another heist tail and another cocktail and mocktail to go with it.

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