The Great Maple Syrup Heist

Well, Hello, I'm Nicole and I'm Ben and you're listening to Wicked and.

Grim, a true crime podcast. Warning. The following podcast.

And material intended for a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised.

That was upbeat.

That was an upbeat intro. Wow, look at us for a grim podcast. That was very upbeat.

We're living our best life, we are.

I've got meat. What are you drinking?

I am actually drinking wine from our local winery. It's a fruit winery place.

Mine's even more local than you, actually, very much so. Because ours this came from our kitchen.

It did as local as it can get, right. I made it myself. Is it good? It is?

I've made better, but it's good. But this is actually the last batch of mead I'm ever gonna make.

You know what never say never well as.

The foreseeable future for anyone who doesn't know. Mead is wine. But it's honey based. It's like what the Vikings used to make back in the day. So I made honey wine myself.

Fits your character very well?

What is my character that it fits?

Like your beard? You're like a manly man and you like your maid.

Are you just describing Regnar? Lothbrook Off Vikings.

I really like him. Actually, I was like obsessed with Vikings.

It's a damn good show.

Sobering good. Okay. Wasn't there supposed to be like a spin off or something of that sort. There was.

It was supposed to take place like I think it was like two hundred years afterwards in the city or the township. Yeah, that they were.

And they were just like a distant not I was gonna say future, but past or whatever, like, well, it's our.

Past technically, but the future. Yeah, so it's supposed to be a little bit of a time difference, and like, yeah, happened. We should look that up, I know, because.

I feel like it should be out by now, But I could be wrong.

It may maybe it's over by now. Maybe it's already like five seasons and done. Who fucking knows. I don't know.

Yeah, knowing us, it probably is.

Probably Do you have any more news or anything we need to drop this episode or can we just go straight into this or what anything we need to say?

I don't know. We're really into Ramen right now?

Oh, yes we are?

Is that important?

Ramen's definitely important. I've been making home, making homemade.

Stuff actually like sour dough.

Yes, haven't made that for a while. I should probably make them soon.

We made some said, you're annoyed with the other day. You're like, you got to start making sour I'm like, I would I if you just do it, though, I'm getting tired of making all this handmade freaking sour dough. At home.

We don't buy bread anymore, just have sour dough, and I'm getting like tired of it. And it's like you want me to keep going clearly because you just get fresh baked bread. Well, time to pull your own.

Damn, I just raked the backyard.

Then that equals fresh bread for the rest of your life.

Wow, let's go.

Let's on that note, let's go into this.

Wow.

Welcome to Wicked and Grim guys.

This is yeah, this is this is it. It just goes downhill.

I'm pretty sure the entire podcast is basically just going to be us taking notes on how we can get away with murder if the other one pisses us off enough.

I don't say that kind of ship.

Yeah, I know, we don't want to get an evidence evidence My bad. I mean that was a joke, total joke. Uh No, But today we're talking a very serious, serious episode.

Oh yeah, you got very serious, or even your eye contact got seriously. This is like.

The worst thing in Canadian history, like ever.

Okay, I'm very intrigued.

It's the Great maple Syrup Heist.

Ooh casey, I actually know nothing about this.

You know nothing about it?

I really don't. I actually didn't really even know it was a thing.

Well, I'm gonna learn you a little bit on it.

Yeah, let's do this.

We bleed maple syrup up here in the North, Yeah, we do. And the fact that there was a giant heist stealing a bunch of maple syrup, it's literally our life blood just gone.

Maple syrup is freaking delicious, it is.

And fun fact about this case though, it's not only the Great maple Syrup Heist, it's the largest heist in Canadian history.

Wom ding dang.

Yeah. So it's pretty crazy cool. So let's start this off. Let's dive right in.

Okay.

So, between twenty eleven and twenty twelve, eighteen point seven million dollars was stolen in nearly three thousand tons of maple syrup from a storage facility in Quebec, Okay.

Can you say how much money again?

Eighteen point seven million?

Wow? Good lord. I wasn't produce AD eighteen or eight, but it was.

Like, holy one eight point seven that's an insane number. That's a ship time in maple syrup.

No kidding, because it's only it's like gold or anything.

Well, it kind of is. I'm gonna we'll get into this here in a sec. So, like, really, before we get into the whole story, I'm going to kind of give you a background on that, like what you're going after here. So first off, before we get numbers of like monetary wise, let's get numbers on production. So Canada produces approximately seventy five percent of the world's maple syrup supply. Wow, and ninety one percent of that supply comes from Quebec.

Really yep. Okay, see I had no idea about this. That's some good learnings right there.

You don't need to go to school kids, just listen to us.

Okay. And this this might be a really dumb question, you know, the like aunt Jemima, Oh no, no, no, that's not Canadians.

That's no, that's just like flavored corn syrup.

Okay. See. I was like, I don't know maybe it is actually but.

Not talking maple syrup.

You get good, delicious, the good shit. Okay, not this, So is that not even maple syrup?

No, that's that's just syrup. That's just a flavored syrup.

Look at I'm learning a lot already. It's like five minutes in. I like this.

So, on average, a tapped maple tree will produce ten gallons ten to twenty gallons sorry of sap per tap. And it takes ten gallons of sap to make approximately one quart of syrup from harvest. Okay, so it takes a lot. Yeah. And maple syrup is valued at approximately twelve hundred dollars a barrel. That's two dollars and eighty eight cents a pound. Now this is all Canadian monetary.

Wow.

And just for a reference, crude oil like to make gasoline, is around sixty five dollars a barrel. So that makes maple syrup ten to twelve times more valuable.

Yeah than crude all.

Maybe it is gold, it's liquid fucking gold.

Wow.

Yeah, that's that's why we Canadians are pretty serious about our maple syrup.

Very serious. Yeah, and now we know why.

Well, it's literally liquid gold. It tastes fucking delicious. It's comes from our own land and it's fucking liquid gold.

Yes, screw hot sauce. We put maple syrup on everything. Yeah, I'm making us sound so ridiculous.

Shit on everything. Oh my god, you can a stir fry. Where's the maple syrup?

Oh? I think I oh man.

Anyways, so we all know about the black market, right due to the prices like twelve hundred dollars a barrel. Yeah, there's there's a black market for maple.

Syrup really, yeah, right, along with organs and stuff. Literally, yeah, that's nuts.

And the funny part is this is hilarious to find this hilarious. This black market for maple syrup is controlled by what is commonly referred to. This isn't a name I made up or just from one article. This is a common name for them, the maple syrup Cartel.

Oh serious and fucking serious, holy free, This is.

Some literal godfather shit.

Wow.

Yeah, So welcome to fucking Canada. Don't fuck with our maple syrup or our geese. You'll die.

Oh my goodness, it just got real.

What really did.

So?

How much you learned so far?

So much. Actually, like I'm actually shocked because I don't. I've almost like like I'm not a very good Canadian so far because I'm like, holy shit, like I probably know this stuff.

Well, you're learning it today.

Yeah, I might have to like re listen to this shit to make sure I really got it in there.

I have a feeling this is gonna be a shit show of an episode, just if you're going what and me being like, yeah, Godfather shit. Also we put that shit.

On everything, Yeah, we really do.

So when it comes to the whole Godfather shit. Though, the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers is the exact federation who controls all this. I'm the maple syrup cartel on the black market. That's a little bit different. The Federation is like the fucking FBI sort of thing.

Oh okay, So they.

Are literally the head of maple syrup production and tells the rest of the country how to make and sell their maple syrup. Okay, They somehow managed to convince the government to approve and enforce that they are in control of buying from producers to sell and distribute the syrup

Really yeah, how did they do this?

I don't know. Wow, this is government law. If you were to produce maple syrup for wholesale, you have to go through them and pay them for their service.

Wow.

So yeah, that's totally fucked up.

That's some intent shit, I know.

Like, so we literally have the Federation, the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers. I love saying that, but I'll refer to them as the federation. So we have the Federation, who's like literally the FBI of the maple syrup world and the maple syrup cartel running the black market for maple syrup.

Wow, Like this means serious business.

Oh it fucking do.

It's business time, man, it's business it's business time.

Motherfucker. Come on, we got maple syrup and its fucking isness time. Sorry oh boy, anyways, I'm not a singer. I'm sorry. Your ears are bleeding now, My bad. So anyways, they maintained this whole federation. They may maintain a strategic reserve of maple syrup, officially known as the International Strategic Reserve, also known as the is R, also referred to as the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve.

Good lord, this is getting too much. It's a lot, it is. It's so in depth, just some freaking maple syrup.

I'm only scratching the surface on this information too. It was way too in depth for me to get into. So I'm just like, this is the basic information here.

And I'm actually shocked too, because how could anyone even get away with anything with all this shit going on.

That's the whole thing, with the whole black market. There's people like trying to rise up against this federation because they're they're saying, like, how can you control this, Like you're literally holding us all hostage with her own supply here.

Well yeah, huh.

So, anyways, these reserves, these strategic reserves, are to ensure that they slow the steady flow of syrup supply and make sure it's pushed to the markets at a rate that keeps the prices from fluctuating.

Okay, I guess that's fair.

It gives the federation complete control over supply and demand, with the ability to charge what they want, hence the extremely high maple syrup prices.

I mean, but that is good for the I don't know what you call them suppliers though, that they are maintaining this high level price for their.

Products necessarily because the Federation will be like, our reserves are full.

This doesn't even sound very Canadian, really, I mean it does.

When you consider the fact that our fucking cartel is based around maple syrup.

I guess.

So, yeah, it's kind of fucked up. It's very Canadian in my opinion, but like that is but just.

Like the control ness and like not where's like the nice cities of you getting to do your own shit.

I'm going to catch a little bit of flak here, no offense, I'm sorry, but we are talking about Quebec. They're dicks. They wanted to separate from Canada.

Oh yeah, are they the dicks of Canada? I don't even okay, I didn't mean, oh gosh, oh gosh, okay, but I actually don't remember if I did. Where did we hear this that they wanted to separate?

This is this is common knowledge, This is history. Do they still want to majority? I think yeah, they want to separate from Canada.

That would be really weird.

No offense, You're not assholes, You're just.

I don't know.

You don't make me mad, you just make me disappointed worse. I know. Let let's push this aside. I don't want to get all political on this. But anyways, due to the overbearing control from the Federation, they basically have people who started trying to sell maple syrup on the black market right controlled by the cartel. Yeah, reserve facilities being placed. Sorry, I lost my spot and I tried to like brain

Like someone's backyard.

Basically pretty much. Yeah, it's at best you might have a security guard do with rounds like once.

In a while, which is interesting really with the value.

Oh I know, and there is a history of maple syrup being stolen too.

Huh.

There was a truck that was stolen with heavily it was ten thousand dollars worth of maple syrup prior to this. I think it was in two thousand and three, somewhere around there. I didn't write these ones down. I was like pluck that, I'm not going to get onto them. Here we are now I'm talking about it. And another case with actually an individual who was involved in this one. We'll get into that later who had stole I think one point three million dollars worth of maple syrup. But

Wow, that's interesting to me.

So yeah, not very smart, like I said, not impenetrable laugh about security security. So with such crazy preventative measures that they managed to do for their securities. We can understand exactly how the maple syrup was basically stolen from said top line facilities. Sorry, I'm gonna stop mocking that now.

Yeah, you can get over that. I can tell it's just ridiculous.

So they discovered that there was missing maple syrup first when a routine inventory check was being performed. It's an annual check. Then you know, they go through and they count all the barrels. They make sure they have their inventory taken.

Care of good.

The person who was heading that inventory check at this specific facility was I'm gonna butcher these names because it's a lot of French names. I'm gonna try. I'm sorry, Michuel garv Roau.

I think that doesn't sound too bad.

Thank you. Just because it sounds bad, it doesn't sound bad, doesn't mean it's not right. And it was, say Miguel. So he went to the warehouse insane Louis de Blancford, de Blanford or whatever, just in Quebec. Again French, I'm sorry, I'm not a French person. Where it contained nearly sixteen thousand drums stacked six high to the ceiling, and he was in charge of counting those barrels all the way.

That's a lot of maple syrup.

That's a lot of maple syrup.

And visualizing that right now.

Wow, each one of those barrels weighed about six hundred pounds.

Holy crap.

Yeah, it's a lot of maple syrup.

Holy moly.

Remember I said it was like what two dollars and eighty eight cents a pound.

Yeah, you did something like that. Yeah, and there's six hundred pounds in a barrel yep.

At sixteen thousand drums. Holy mola in Justice one facility. So this is a sort of reserve that they're just holding back and not putting it out to public so they can maintain prices. So Mguel, I think climbed to the top of the stack to get some heights, you know, perform the count so you can get you know, perspective and all that sort of thing. Yeah, doesn't sound safe at all, just saying this. He just you know, scaling six high.

Oil drums, always climbing on the barrel, climbing on the barrels. Oh my gosh, okay, friing loadder No, No.

He's just climbing up the top of the barrel. So he's climbing and he reaches up to grab the top barrel to pull himself up when it shifted, causing him to fall backwards to the ground with a six hundred pound barrel crashing down on top of him.

But the barrel wasn't actually full, was it.

The barrel didn't crush him because it didn't weigh six hundred pounds because it was empty.

Yeah. I actually caught on earlier. I normally pat on the back, baby, I'm smart tonight.

You got to do the back there, you go leave me hanging there. So, yeah, thankfully the barrel was empty.

But then if the barrel was full, he might not have fallen either though exactly.

Yeah, the six hundred pounds would have exactly. Yeah, so you're catching on, you know what you're talking about. So an empty barrel, it's you know, definitely odd. And they just chalked it up to an inventory error, as there was actually multiple barrels that were empty in there, but it was just a handful, and they're just like, you know, shit like this happens. You know, something could have fucked up.

Oh wow.

Over the course of the next three months, they discovered nearly ten thousand barrels had been emptied of their contents, with a value of over eighteen million dollars.

Holy shit. Yeah, So, were like the people still doing it over that three months or had or had it already been done?

I wanted they were still doing it. They were doing it before the inventory check, and they were continuing to do it.

See. I feel like I would find one empty barrel and be like, what the fuck, and the Sebert just like yeah whatever, like and then they don't even and then they find mores, yeah whatever, they don't increase their security and.

Shit, well, I mean if you just look at one empty barrel, I mean, for someone who's making that much money, you're looking at six hundred pounds times two point eight, so six hundred basically times three, right, So you're looking at how much is that? Like eighteen hundred dollars?

Yes, but still like that. I'm pretty wait, no, how much is that? I actually don't know six hundred.

I think it's eighteen eighteen hundred, Okay, Yeah, it's eighteen hundred.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Holy moly.

So, I mean eighteen hundred dollars down the drain and it's just a missing barrel. What the fuck? That's odd? Yeah, but for big corporation, that's not that much. It's just one missing barrel. But then it starts adding up, adding up.

You know.

Once something happened twice is.

A what is it? Fool me? What is the same?

Well for me once, shame on you. For me twice, shame on me. But I mean there's also once actually, go well here, once is something happened? You know, it's just yeah, whatever, twice coincidence? Three times as a pattern.

Yeah, So, I mean.

We got this happening repeated repeatedly, and now we're getting up to ten thousand.

To see what they were doing here, like how they're getting it out of the barrels and what they're doing, this is fascinating.

Well, we're going to get into it a little bit here.

And I also want a barrel of maple syrup.

Barrel of syrup. I really we'll oh god. So during the whole time, there were actually eyewitnesses at the compound, which were located just off the main highway like I said, saying that there were trucks coming and going at strange hours all throughout the day, at different times like day night, just weird nondescript trucks.

Okay.

One individual named Pascal Patrie I got that one pretty good good job. He was a laborer who worked at the specific facility loading and unloading trucks. And he actually reported water on one of the barrels, which we're working in maple syrup here. There shouldn't be water, right, yeah, And he reported it to his manager, and his manager offered him one thousand dollars to keep his mouth and join the cause.

Really, yeah, I would take that deal.

Oh okay, So he accepted. He would work for the federation, you know because this is their their warehouse, right, So he'd work his Federation job nine to five and then after hours help the black market cartel thieves steal and replace the maple syrup with water by night.

Wow. Yeah, So were they just putting that I don't know, you might get here, but were they just putting emptying the barrels of maple syrup into like another barrel and taking it?

Well, what they were doing, because there was a different ways they would do it. But the main way that I found is they would essentially load up maple syrup into their trucks and unload barrels filled with water.

Okay, okay, yeah.

That's essentially what they would do. Interesting, So, most of the workers who were actually involved in like that loading and unloading process, even driving, didn't know they were even a part of it, really they, or so they claim anyways, because I mean if I was a part of it and I knew, I.

Like, I'm just I don't know what the Yeah, no kidding, No one.

Told me I was stealing shit. Uh So they're basically just basically paid under the table to simply haul the truck from like point A to point B or load or unload the shipment at like weird specific times for cash. So I mean there's gonna be people out there who are looking for work or just fuck yeah, they're not gonna ask questions, yes, do it?

Yeah, they just need the money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So a Karen VK Karen, I think it's a V Karen. There we go. However, was a warehouse worker who would be a key part and central figure for this whole operation. A vek spouse actually owned the property this warehouse was in. It was a rented warehouse she owned. Okay, well I'm not sure if she owned it. I saw owned, but I have a feeling it's more or like operated or something. Anyways. Yeah, so his spouse was in charge of that, and he had reported history as well, and a criminal record of fraud.

Oh okay, So he's done this before his experience.

Yeah. So, but clearly that didn't stop him because he's doing it again.

Well he got away with it.

Yeah. So he would buy from producers and sell to whoever he could. And the problem was when people were buying, there's no way of really knowing where the serp came from. So even though someone's buying stolen maple syrup, there's no way of knowing it's stolen maple syrup. You basically have to trust the person you're purchasing from. Some people, I'm

This on it.

And it's like these barrels, there's like a label on it. You slap another label over top, you label off whatever.

Right, So people were buying the black market stuff not knowing. Yes, okay.

One thing that I got to give them credit for, though, I fucking love this. So they use cell phones during the whole operation, and you know, burner phone sort of thing, right, Okay, And they had alias names that they ran by on these cell phones, and those alias names were themed. First of all, you're coordinated, you're themed. Love it. Second of all, they were Star Wars themed. We're talking Luke Skywalker, We're talking Lea Hans Solo.

You will love that.

Okay. I just want to say if I were to ever commit a heist, I want to do that straight up. That's just badass.

So if anyone ever hears anything about like something like that in the news, they're going to know what's been Yeah, that was me, proudly.

So the Rebel Alliance, which Star Wars reference, and it totally fits what they're doing, just so I'm calling them the Rebel Alliance from here and out.

Oh, like, do you made that up?

Oh yeah, that's me.

Oh good job.

Well, the Rebel Alliance and Star Wars.

I know, I thought it would just made sense, So I thought it was just part of.

The story about I put that in there because it just fits so well. So they grew more and more nervous actually with that annual inventory check coming up, because they knew there was a high chance, high possibility that these empty barrels or barrels full of water were going to be discovered. So they actually did things like even mess with the lights to try and get it, like dimmer in there to try and you know, get there

Well I think they got almost too grady, really.

Yeah, I think so, because I mean we're talking a lot of money here.

They just stopped at like five million or whatever. They really need eighteen million.

Yeah, that's you got a point. I would probably stop at like five barrels.

Yeah, you're like, I'm good retirement and that's a lot of a lot of labor.

I don't want to be moving all these barrels.

Well yeah, that's freaking heavy.

Yeah. So there were other indicators though, other than just that empty barrel that like toppled over. Okay, so the indicators that helped them identify all these empty barrels in the sea of fucking maple syrup. One of them was rust, because we're talking water in these barrels.

The barrels began to rust, and they wouldn't have rust. Stood with syrup, they wouldn't have No. Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah.

Another one was marks on the barrels from forklifts. Because of Warehouse when they were operating, they had actual specific attachments on their forklifts rather than just standard forks on the bottom, and they were designed to grab two barrels at a time without damaging the barrels.

Oh okay, but these people didn't have that.

These people rented forklifts and just used regular forks, and those forks can scratch, dentt do a lot of damage.

Yeah.

So when they're looking for to identify which barrels were filled with maple syrup and not, it was pretty easy to say, well, that one's got rust on it. Let's check it. Yeah, water, okay, let's check the one beside it. Okay, that one's also water. Even if there's not rust, it's like, now we are looking in this spot. Oh, there's dents and scratches over here. Let's check these ones.

That's a lot of signs. Actually, really, it is.

Another sign that they completely missed, which just dumb, absolutely dumb. Was a little later on when they're doing their investigation, some of the maple syrup barrels that were sold to people on the black market or whatever had like labels with the head of the whole thing, like his name on it.

Yeah. Really, they were even able.

To track down where the rental forklist was from from, like arrest warrants and there's like receipts and shit for these rental fork lists. They were not careful at all.

Yeah, they almost like seem like they were like cocky or something like I'm not gonna get caught.

I think they were just dumb. I think like, yeah, they're just like sloped.

That's like really dumb though, yeah it is.

It's really like it's just so janky. They just never thought into the like we're gonna steal some shit, We're gonna get people just gonna pay them, and there'll be so many people involved. No one's gonna talk.

People talked to get that much money, though. I feel like you would have had to kind of like have some serious brains behind this operation.

But no, I think it's I think it's just serious balls. He's got the hood spot to pull it off, yeah,

Yeah, that's some scary shit.

But we're talking a lot of people involved, Like not everyone kept quiet.

Yeah.

So all in all, about three hundred people were questioned, forty search warrants were executed, and the case basically worked in a textbook way. You know, chase down a lead, question the witness, identify the ring leader, and boom close. That's pretty much how it went.

It probably wasn't even that hard to get to that ring leader really.

No, it wasn't, like I said, his name was on fucking.

Bars, actually yeah, and he's.

Already got a past like it. It was like, I don't even need to talk evidence here because it was just so fucking easy. So what happened here from from those individuals that were caught, I've got a list here of people who were charged, but from what they arrested was a total of twenty six individuals, and there was probably more, oh there was more involved, but that the arrests involved twenty six people.

That's a lot of people.

Yeah, definitely, Like you're talking.

Not even getting a million bucks at this point, Like, what the shit's the point.

I'm pretty sure they were getting like, oh, maybe probably getting paid.

There was tears. Probably they weren't getting splitting it evenly or whatever.

Well, I'm sure they weren't splitting it evenly. I'm sure it's a matter of like we'll give you ten grand to do this, will give you five grand to do this, and for workers, will give you five hundred bucks a night like that sort of stuff.

Yeah.

Okay, now, thankfully, and this is this is gonna be good news, good news to any Canadian out there listening. Thankfully, two thirds of the stolen goods were actually recovered.

Holy that's a lot.

Yes. However, the other third were unfortunately absorbed into the world's pancakes supply on everyone's breakfast plates. So I actually wrote that.

In my notes to say that look at that.

But that did come at a cost, because we're talking that some people who did purchase these legitimately thinking it was legitimate maple syrup that they can you know, put into their supply and get out there. Yeah, basically FBI is kicking in their door and stealing like a million dollars worth of maple syrup that they have almost putting their business like under.

Well, I hope that they would like compensate them.

No, it's stolen goods.

What the shit though? Oh that doesn't seem fair because then what is going on? Like, Okay, they take back the maple syrup, what are they going to do with that though? Did they later sell it? That's bullshit if that's the case.

Yeah, probably, Wow, it's there, it's rightfully theirs. It's stolen property, right.

I don't know. I have issues with that, But that's another story. You know.

I'm going to skip ahead a little bit to kind of give talk about what you're on already.

Here.

There is one party that actually never did get charged, the Federation itself. There are rumors that it itself was involved. Their reserves were too great and to simply just release extra maple syrup out into the world would you know, decrease demand and increased supply, thus dropping the price. So they didn't want to do that. But they just got all this giant stock and maple syrup just sitting there.

Oh, interesting.

So there's this big like thing going around where people are talking about maybe this was actually a thing that the Federation did try and pull off.

Hmmm. I don't know what the shelf life of maple syrup is.

It's it's pretty long, is it. I'm not too sure what it is exactly. Well, I know it's like because the sugar content's so high, right right, it basically like most bacteria just can't survive in it, Like honey doesn't have a shelf life because of the sugar content, and I know that it's similar with maple syrup. But I know it does have a shelf life.

Huh. So very interesting. I wouldn't actually that's I wouldn't put it past them that they.

Were involved, well, especially considering by the sounds of what they've done previously, like just overthrowing everyone warning this whole thing.

They sound like shady characters.

And this is a way of ensuring that you get some of these people in this black market cartel for maple syrup arrested as well, and off your back and selling maple syrup where you could be taking it and selling it.

Yeah, so you're.

Kind of getting an insurance money. You're also getting rid of these basically people who are working against you. Yeah, it's it's a win win if they were.

Involved, Yeah, but no one knows.

No one knows officially or for sure. So to wrap this all up, we do have the individuals who were charged in the case. Richard Valierez, who was the accused ringleader, was sentenced in April twenty seventeen to eight years in prison plus a nine point million dollar fine with an extension to fourteen years in prison if the fine is not paid.

Holy Okay, that's actually crazy though. Fourteen years nine million dollars like that just seems on a scale not balanced. But did he have that kind of money? No?

Oh maybe if he got away with his.

Whole heist, Yeah, then he would have for sure.

Also, Raymond Valierez, Richard's father, was convicted of possession.

Oh you got his pops involved. Eh.

Yeah, I'm not too sure what that possession was. Maybe it's just possession of drugs. I don't fucking know, But clearly there was a warrant out for being able to search their property. They found something. Whether it was the maple syrup or fucking cocaine, Apparently either one is enough to be convicted at this point Etienne Saint Pierre. He was a New Brunswick based syrup reseller, so clearly he's

Okay, okay, was the wife involved too, not as far as I know, interesting, Okay, the so he was that.

The insider whose wife was involved, and he was sentenced to five years in prison plus a one point two million dollar fine.

Woo.

And Sebastian Jutrus, who was a trucker involved in the transport of the syrup he served eight months in prison.

Not really that long of sentences, not really, but I mean it's not like murder or anything was involved.

Yeah, and it's like I don't know, Yeah, it's money. Yeah, you're doing some bad shit. But yeah, no one's dead.

Or hurt, which is good, which is good.

But like I said, it does cut deep for the Canadian nation.

Okay, I'm you probably said this story when when did this happen? What years?

That was between twenty eleven and twenty twelve, so.

Not very long. Curiously, not that long ago? Was this shit not all over the news? Where was I living under a rock?

Apparently? I don't remember this being on the news. I only heard of this case a few years ago.

I'm trying to think, what the hell was I doing then? I would have been Oh, I would have been in school. I probably didn't give a shit about anything except my degree.

Yeah, probably. Huh wait, twenty twelve. I'm trying to think now, m Yeah, I don't.

Know, because, yeah, that's really not that long ago, really not at all.

But that's the great Canadian maple syrup.

W Yeah, it wasn't that interesting, right?

I wanted to get a little bit off that murderous track, even though this is very skeevy and like I said, just fucking horrendous for our nation, a little bit more lighthearted than what we were doing. Yep. And then my next episode, let's go right into some fucking gruesome shit.

I know. I'm like, what can I do to them next time? I'm like thinking, in my head, here.

See how we can just make this just derail every time, just this roller coaster of what the fuck is happening?

I was actually searching today what I'm gonna do.

Next time, and do you know what you're gonna do.

I don't know. I have a few ideas because I said I would do a non Canadian one, right, yep, So I have a couple ideas. I was even like, man, maybe I should just fuck them right up and do non Canadian and like an unsolved one. But I might not go that far. I might not go that far.

I think for my next one, I might actually see if I can pull off from our suggested list from our listeners.

There is one on that suggested list I really want to do.

Maybe it's the same one.

It might be the same one.

Well we'll find out find out, yeah, yeah, when we get to that. But next time it's going to be you. So until we can hear your next episode, make sure you guys stay wicked.