Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - The Great Canadian Syrup Heist

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

In one of the strangest and stickiest white-collar crimes ever committed, a group of Quebec thieves siphoned off nearly 3,000 tons of maple syrup—worth over $18 million—from the Global Strategic Maple Reserve, an actual government-run stockpile meant to stabilize syrup prices. For more, follow Crimes Of wherever you listen to podcasts: https://pod.link/1838511303 For Ad-free listening to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts.  🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Crime House 24/7, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories, and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Before we get into today's episode, I want to tell you about another show I think you'll love, Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bot. Every Monday, Dr. Bot goes where history gets mysterious, vanished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, paranormal phenomena, and events that science still can't fully explain. Dr. Bot treats these moments like open case files, not myths, not superstition, just incomplete explanations. waiting for a closer look. Hidden history drops every Monday. Follow now on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify, or wherever you listen, so you never miss a mystery. This is Crime House. They thought it was the perfect crime involving forklifts, fake barrels, and more maple syrup than you could ever imagine. A plan so clever, it couldn't possibly fail. Until it did. Spectacular. Welcome to Crimes of Deception. I'm Sabrina Deanna Roga. I'm Corinne Vian. And this season we are diving into stories where ambition, ego, and a little bit of delusion turn everyday schemes into headline-making crimes.

And also some of the most ridiculous crimes ever committed. Subscribe now and step inside the world of Crimes of. The case of the maple syrup heist starts now. Welcome to Crimes of Deception, a crimehouse original, by Pave Studios. We are your host, Sabrina Deanna Roga and Corinne Vienne. Every Tuesday, we're exploring a different corner of the true crime universe, examining cases that left a permanent impact on society. This season, we're stepping into some of the boldest and most unbelievable crimes ever committed, the kinds of crimes where reality is stranger than fiction.

If you're loving crimes of, please follow, rate and review us wherever you listen. It helps us build this community, and we love hearing from you. To get early access and ad-free listening, subscribe to the Crimehouse Plus community on Apple Podcasts. And you can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life. Today we're heading to Canada to cover a case that has truly stuck in our collective memory. Sticky stuck. It's the biggest heist of maple syrup in history. From the outside, this warehouse looks unremarkable.

A red brick building, sitting quietly off a highway about two hours. northeast of Montreal. But inside sits one of the most valuable assets in all of Canada. Barrel after barrel after barrel of maple syrup. Liquid gold. Perhaps it's best that this building is unassuming considering the value of what is held within. Accountant Michel Gavreau pulls up to the building. It's a hot summer day, July 30th, 2012, and Michelle has a job to do. He needs to make sure every barrel is accounted for. Michelle is the kind of guy who loves a spreadsheet. He's organized, he's used to dotting the eyes and crossing his teas, and he takes pride

in making sure that he is very diligent in his tasks. He needs everything to be in order and that not a single penny is missing. And today's job, well, it's a pretty big one, a task that can't be completed in his air-conditioned office because he needs to count these 16,000 barrels of maple syrup. By hand. That is a lot. That is a lot. He's getting his steps in. Michelle steps inside the warehouse and he gets the feeling that something's off. Something's wrong. First, he notices the smell. Not the sweet, cozy, comforting smell that you would expect from a warehouse full of maple syrup. But more of like a whiff of stale beer in the air. The floor is sticky. The concrete floor feels tacky under his shoes. Like someone had spilled syrup and then maybe tried and failed to clean it up.

Michelle pauses. That's odd, but nothing seems out of place. So Michelle makes a mental note to let the warehouse manager know to keep the place a little bit more cleaner and then he gets to work. This space is a sea of metal barrels, row after row of perfectly symmetrical rows disappearing into the distance. Each one weighs more than 600 pounds. And Michelle has a lot of work ahead of him. So he gets started. carefully stepping from barrel to barrel, climbing over them like he's playing a game of Donkey Kong. He does this with ease. It's not his first rodeo. But when Michel gets to the top of a stack, the barrel beneath his foot suddenly shifts. Just slightly, just enough that he loses his balance. His arms windmill in the air for a few heart-pounding seconds. Somehow, Michel manages to stay on his feet, and he studies himself. But now he knows there's certainly something on.

off. He taps the barrel with his foot. Hmm, sounds hollow, which is impossible. It's a 600-pound barrel of maple syrup, so it should never wobble, let alone sound hollow. Taping again, Michelle realizes the barrel is empty. What? Where did it go? Where did it go? Concerned, he checks another also empty, and another also empty. It feels like plankton and stolen the crabby-patti recipe, doesn't it? I feel like we're in the Pink Panther movie too. Beryl after barrel, he discovers they have all been drained. And by the end of his investigation, Michelle and authorities found that 18.7 million Canadian dollars worth of maple syrup was missing. 18.7 million dollars. It's expensive. That's a lot of syrup. And a lot of money.

Mm-hmm. They breakfast emergency. I really do feel like this is a Pink Panther meets Wes Anderson meets Ocean's 11 film. Oh, totally. And story. Like how in the world did someone steal $18.7 million worth of maple syrup and not get caught? Especially given how heavy they are. Like, I don't even understand getting away with one barrel. And also what happens to Michelle if he loses count in his, like as he's going by?

There's so many mysteries. Well, then also, who would want this much maple syrup? Aside from you. Me. And so many. But these are the questions we were going to ask and hopefully answer. Except with you and so many. But mostly you.

But before we get into it, we're going to shout out a couple of our sources for today's episode. There's an episode of the Netflix series, Dirty Money, all about this maple syrup heist, and an article by Brendan Burrell in Bloomberg News and reporting from Canada's National Post. Okay. I think it's very important to give context about maple syrup in general. Besides it being your favorite. We're getting into the facts. We're getting into the facts. Maple syrup comes from the sap of maple trees.

It is collected and slowly boiled down into the golden sweet syrup that we leather on our pancakes. And if you're buddy the elf from elf on our pasta. On your brussels, brats, and your coffee, on your ice cream. Yeah. And your oatmeal? Anywhere. Just guzzle it. Love it. It was first discovered by indigenous people in Northeastern North America, who then shared their knowledge with the European settlers in the 1600s. And naturally, you get one taste of maple syrup and you're hooked. So the European settlers were like, yep, this is a very important part of our lives and the regional trade. And then demand grew from there.

Kind of ironic since the settlers came into the northeast and like basically knocked down every single tree here. But maple syrup is still very prominent. And today, the global maple syrup market is worth roughly $1.6 to $2.7 billion per year. Canada produces about 70% of the world's maple syrup supply, producing roughly 18 to 20 million gallons of it per year. Oh, my God. And then 90% of that 70% comes from Quebec. Wait, what was 18 to 20 million gallons per year? Which is wild.

take somewhere between like 30 and 50 gallons of sap boiled down to just make one gallon of maple syrup to sell. Of course, you know that detail. That's a lot that you have to collect. That was not in the script. That is Corinne does nose that off the top of her head. It's 30, but for some for some sugar bushes, it's a little bit more. But okay, so in simple terms, maple syrup isn't just delicious. It's also a billion dollar industry, which naturally that means there's a little bit of corruption, some power struggles, and shockingly in this story, some mafia energy. I believe it.

Which is just so, like, this feels like a cartoon. Or it's like, I know. I'm just picturing people like in their flannels and their be boots and burkingstocks. And it's like French mustache. But like mafia vibes. Yeah. It doesn't feel real. But it is.

It is. And part of the problem is that maple syrup is also incredibly hard to predict. So sap only flows during. a tiny window each year. So if it's too warm or too cold, production drops. By the time this episode comes out, we are probably past maple syrup sugaring season in Canada and maybe at the tail end in Vermont. All of my facts are going to come flowing. But essentially, it's chaotic. It's unpredictable. You can't just like assume you're going to get, it's just like any crop, right? Like you can't assume you're going to get the same harvest every year. Right. So this is where a group called the

Quebec maple syrup producers comes in. So we're just going to call it the Federation. for the sake of simplicity for the rest of this episode. The Federation was established in 1966 to regulate the production of maple syrup within the province of Quebec. Their goal was to control supply, stabilize prices, and also protect the farmers

from those unpredictable harvests. On paper, that sounds great, right? You're like... Yeah, in theory, sure. Yeah, you're like, oh, help the farmers and still get my maple syrup for breakfast? That's great. It's not as great as it sounds.

So the Federation boasts keeping the industry stable. But when you actually look at the logistics of it, it's kind of more of like a maple syrup cartel. But a legal government-approved cartel. Yeah. But like it makes me mad. Like I'm kind of glad that they got robbed. But it's they got robbed after they robbed others, which we'll talk about. Yeah.

So the Federation literally controls how much farmers are allowed to produce, who they can sell to and how much they can get paid. which that is ludicrous. Yeah. So if farmers produce more than their allotted maple syrup, they have to send the excess to the Federation's reserve. And this maple syrup reserve was created in the year 2000, and the idea was basically to make sure the world always had enough maple syrup. Which we love.

They have these things everywhere. They isn't Wisconsin, don't they have like a cheese reserve? Oh, I were to say more maple syrup facts. I was like, I don't know, girl. Wisconsin is a cheese reserve. Yeah, they're cheese town. Upstate New York has like, hold seed bank in case the world ends.

Right. So it's good to have the reserves. Yes, yes. Yeah, but they're controlling how much the farmers can actually sell and then like stockpiling and holding it onto it. Exactly. So the farmers who are overproduced, they have to send their access to the reserve, but they don't get paid for their production. And sometimes they don't get paid for years, not until the Federation decides to sell the maple syrup. Do they get paid? And farmers are essentially capped. So they can't make more than the Federation allowed. but they are allowed to make less. So I don't know how we're like protecting the farmers here.

Right. That's what they're telling themselves here. And on top of that, the Federation is in charge of selling the syrup. And they also pocket a nice little percentage, a fee. So it's more than just setting regulations. They basically inserted themselves as the middleman and started pocketing money. Yeah. And there's a lot more legal financial drug in here.

But the important thing to understand is that the Federation, which did start for good reason, is now seizing the opportunity to benefit for itself and restricts those who are actually producing the maple syrup. And for a lot of maple syrup producers, that's a nightmare because they want to sell their syrup in a free market system but feel like they can't because the cartel is like overseeing everything. Also, it's kind of ridiculous because the whole thing is like, oh, well, there's unpredictable seasons. So like we're helping you here. But they're not at all because then if you have a bad season, too bad, you make what you may. But if you have a good season, So you're capped.

Like you can't make up for the previous season because you can't sell or make more if you have more. So what do the farmers do? Well, some of them take matters into their own hands and they have started to sell it on the black market, which I fully support. Which I also love so much because it adds to the cartoonish nature of this environment and this corporation. Yeah. But there is a black market maple syrup underworld. Like where do you buy it? Like where is the path market?

How do you find it? I think you have to know someone. But these guys who sell on the black market, they call themselves barrel rollers because they roll barrels of syrup to the global market, mostly to the U.S., which means that you might be consuming black market maple syrup, which I think is the coolest thing ever. Like if I'm going to present my maple syrup at breakfasts and be like, this is from the black market. It's a black market. But they can bring in sometimes upwards of 50% more per barrel than the Federation allows them to sell.

So like I understand why they would use that avenue to say. But the point is, in context that's important for this episode, is that maple syrup farmers and Corinne and I are annoyed with the Federation. And so that means black market sales are commonplace. Instacart knows that some people go bananas about getting the perfect, well, banana. Some want them green, some want them ripe, some want them ready right when they hit their doorstep. But with Instacart's preference picker, available at most retailers, you can choose to get your groceries just the way you like. That means perfectly right bananas, deli meat sliced just the way you want, and avocados that aren't still hard as a puck in the third period.

So don't cross your fingers and hope for the best. Download the app and get groceries just how you like with Instacart. Think about some of the cases that defined true crime in America. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, the Karen retrial. Some crime cases are so shocking. They don't just make headlines they forever change a country. I'm Katie Ring, host of a person. America's most infamous crimes. Each week, I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases,

whether it's unfolding now or etched into American history, revealing not just what happened, but how it forever changed our society. Serial killers who terrorized cities, unsolved mysteries that kept detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes, released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. These are the stories behind the headlines. Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes available now wherever you get your podcast. This feels like a prohibition era that I would so participate in too.

Like if I knew I could buy black market syrup, I would be this whole time. Yeah. You'd be a barrel roller. Right. Yeah. I don't know that I'd be rolling the barrels, but I think I'd be a customer. Oh, you just buy them. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. I'd support them making more for their season. I agree. Okay, so this brings us to a man named Richard Vallier. Richard's dad owns a sugar shack, so he grew up in the maple syrup business, and he knew his way around it. He learned how to work early on in this business, and he also saw the corruption firsthand from a very early age. And he watched as his father and all the laborers worked so hard day after day. And all of that work was just being restricted and capped by the Federation.

without them being able to amass like the wealth that they could, despite their being demand. So by the time that Richard was in his 20s, he was working in the business, actively trying to find ways to stick it to the Federation. He was like a maple syrup Robin Hood. I like that you said stick it too. I feel like there's so many puns that like maybe unintentional.

For sure. He started buying syrup directly from producers and reselling it to buyers outside of the Federation system. aka the black market. And by 2011, when Richard was in his 30s, he had been selling maple syrup on the black market for over a decade. The Federation was aware of Richard and his black market dealings. And they actually fined him $1.8 million in 2007 after being caught buying almost a literal ton of syrup outside of their system. The Federation even seized his house.

But Richard did not let that stop him. And then one summer day in 2011, a friend named Sebastian Jutra, who was a truck driver, tells him that there's someone he needs to meet. This is a guy with a great business opportunity. So Roche-Tard is like, okay, I love the sound of that. And he drives about an hour and a half outside of Montreal to meet this guy, this guy with this great business opportunity. So he pulls up, plans to meet at this particular spot. It's a truck stop along the highway. And this place is packed with families on road.

trips and people stopping to fill their tanks and it's like definitely not like a quiet like secret handshake dealing opportunity meeting in plain sight totally the first thing richard notices beyond the crowded parking lot is that there are a couple dozen giant plexiglass dinosaurs i want to go to the truck stop or rest stop how fun this is so fun yeah and under the watchful eyes of these Degosaurus and ferocious T-Rexes over here, Richard meets Sebastian and his friend, who was a guy named Avic Caron. Avic is in his late 30s, and he tells Richard that he can sell him a lot of maple syrup at a really good price.

But here's the thing. Avic has no experience in the maple syrup business. But he does have a history of fraud. So naturally, Richard is a little suspicious of this business proposal. He was like, I love these dinosaurs. dinosaurs at the rest up, but I'm a little bit dubious of you, Avic. How can you say no in front of the stegosaurus? How could you say no?

But more than the fact that Avik has no history of working in the maple syrup business, Richard knows that the year's maple syrup harvest wasn't good. So he's kind of like, how would Avik have access to maple syrup if the production this year was bad? It reminds me a bit of the Somalié wine heist situation or character, I guess. So in 2011, Canada's production was significantly lower than usual. And as context, in 2011, Quebec produced about 105 million pounds of maple syrup. But then the next year in 2012, they produced 152 million pounds. So it's not catastrophic, but it was noticeable. And Richard knew that this was a farmer-wide issue. Everyone's harvest was

low. So how is this Avic guy who's just meeting for the first time saying he can sell a ton of maple syrup at a cheap rate? Sounds too good to be true. And then he wonders if he's being set up by someone at the Federation because he's already gotten in trouble with the Federation. Operation Sting, you know. But Avic promises he's legit. And that's when he reveals his source of maple syrup. The own federations reserve stockpile. That's right.

Avik is offering Richard the maple syrup that the Federation has been stockpiling and withholding sales of. And as a man with a vendetta against the Federation, Richard is like, what could be better than stealing from the Federation directly. It kind of feels like stealing your own syrup back. Exactly. In a way. Sweet. Sweet revenge. So here, Richard is meeting this man that he's never met before being proposed this like most delicious plan. Under dinosaurs. Under the sunny skies and dinosaur land. And this plan is to steal from the Federation. So he's obviously interested. We're interested right now. The crime has already happened. Wait, are we too late to be a part of this? I wish I had a mustache right now to like rub and curl. Yeah. Some wax for it. So the Federation is this

massive entity. So how in the world does Avik, who he's never heard of or met this guy before, how does he have access to the stockpile of maple syrup? Avic explains that his wife happens to co-own a warehouse where the Federation stores part of its global stockpile. How convenient. How convenient. an inside job. The Federation is in the process of building their own new warehouse, but until that's completed, they have rented out this space. Avik's wife co-owns. So Avik has noticed that the warehouse is basically unguarded.

There is one on-site guard, but otherwise, barely any security cameras, no one else walking around, and there's a ton of syrup barrels everywhere. So he's like, it's a sitting duck, it's sitting maple syrup. It's ripe for the pickin. And the more Richard learns, the more interested he becomes. And he wants that sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sticky revenge. And what better way to flip the bird to the regulators of the syrup than to steal the stockpile and sell it on the black market again.

Plus, also, they'll make a ton of money. So that's a huge, a huge perk. Yeah. Yeah. So the three men talk it over and they decide, let's go for it. All they have to do is make a plan. And this is not just any plan. It is a heist with everything they need right at their fingertips.

They have the access. They have transportation. And they have a buyer. And if we have learned anything from Oceans 11 is that every good heist needs a crew. So we've got Avik. He's the inside man. The one with the access to the warehouse. Then we have Sebastian, a truck driver.

He's the transportation. He will move the barrels in and out under the cover of night. So starting in August 2011, Richard, Sebastian, and Avik put their plan into action. They start by setting up a little group chat, little text messages. A WhatsApp. With burner phones. And they refer to each other only by their initials. So, Richard is RV. He expresses concern about the night guard. How do we get around him? AC, Avique, says, don't worry. The night guard is in on it too.

So Avic, AC, gets the syrup out of storage. Sebastian, S.J, pulls up his truck, loads it up for pickup. And once they're in the warehouse, they use a rented forklift to load barrels of syrup onto Sebastian's tractor trailer. Over many weeks, they take small amounts. Night after night. Barrels of maple syrup are loaded into the trucks. They take these barrels to Richard's father's sugar shack to process. And Richard's dad also hates the Federation, so keep this in mind. He sees what's happening.

He's like, yes, I approve. I approve. I approve. Well, he's stealing his syrup back. Exactly. And so you might be curious, wouldn't the Federation notice thousands of barrels going missing? Yes, correct. You would be correct in assuming that they would, which is why our team of thieves wasn't stealing the physical barrels. They were draining them into their own containers. It's so crazy, like siphoning gas out of a vehicle. And then they would refill the Federation's barrels with water from a nearby stream. Sebastian would then drive the water filled barrels back to the warehouse and put them back so that no one noticed them missing.

Which is kind of a complicated plan because they're removing the item, but then they also have to return the item. Like there's, you don't just escape with the barrel and that's done. It's stolen. You're risking going back twice in like a night. Right. Which means that it's clearly so unguarded. Totally. So every week, Sebastian goes to the warehouse late at night, picks up a new batch of syrup, replaces the stolen syrup with water. And over about a year, they stole nearly 3,000 tons of maple syrup, again, valued at over. over $18 million. Dang. Got some, like, crazy success with stealing maple syrup.

And I love this for them. I don't know. This should be made into, like, a dramatized film. It should be. If it hasn't already, Seth Rogan is the truck driver. Let's cast it now. Let's just make this. Okay.

We'll be back. We're going to go write a movie. Okay. So now they're stealing the syrup. That is working. They're replacing it. Nothing seems to be happening in terms of them being caught. and have a place, which is Richard's dad's sugaring operation, his property to have the maple syrup on.

Now they have to make money. Now they have to sell it, right? And so this is where Richard is like, this is my part. This is my time to shine. He sells them with a stolen syrup to a barrel roller in his late 60s named Etienne St. Pierre. Etienne is based out of New Brunswick, Canada, and New Brunswick has some different rules than Quebec does when it comes to maple syrup. So Etienne buys a syrup. He then sells it in small batches to people who do not know it is stolen, including Vermonters. So maybe I have also. We all might have stolen syrup. They're having so much success and bringing in so much money that like this part of the story starts to feel like breaking bad. At one point, Sebastian collects a shoebox full of $200,000 in cash from a buyer in a shoebox. That is just so crazy. Another time he picks up a plastic bag containing $100,000 just of bills. They are rolling in the Benjamin's, or except in this case, they're the Bordons because that's Canada's eighth prime minister, Sir Robert Borden, and he's on the money. Do you think they drink the syrup?

You know how people say, like, don't get high on your own supply? Doesn't apply in this case. Okay, but so instead of stashing the money away in their cross space like Walter White and saving it for their family. family, our thieves decide they're going to have a little bit of fun with it because they're, they're excited about all the money coming in. Sebastian parties it up in Cancun with Richard and some of their other alleged accomplices. And over time, the circle of people involved in the theft starts to expand. So it starts with the three, maybe four, and then like Richard's dad. But then they start to bring more people in and on it. And now at this point, like over a dozen

men know about it. So they're getting a little sloppy. But they're still living it up, right? Like, this is so fun. But overconfidence will come to bite you in the ass, right? Yes. They begin their heist in summer. But as you know, it's Canada and winter comes with a lot of cold and snow and things that aren't so fun. Yeah, and ice.

And that means that you can't just go down to the stream and use the water to refill your stolen barrels because it's probably frozen. So Richard rents his own warehouse where he can refill the barrels with water there. But at some point, they just returned some of the barrels completely empty because they're getting a little confident, a little sloppy. And at this point, no one's noticed so far. No one's noticed, yeah. Right. So now they're empty barrels in the Federation's warehouse. And maybe this was an accident. Maybe this was someone just forgetting to check the barrels before they put them back. But unfortunately, this is really what was the reason for their undoing. And we'll get back to that in a minute. The crew starts slipping up in a variety of ways. So the original barrels in the Federation's warehouse were in perfect condition. But the ones that the crew has stolen and then refilled, they're returning really dirty and really banged up.

So they look out of place. They're a bit careless with their barrels. Finally, towards the end of the heist, they start draining the syrup out of the barrels directly at the Federation's Warehouse instead of doing it in another location, which you're like, okay, well. Convenience. Convenience. It's happening quicker. that's going to be more effective in terms of not damaging the barrel, but they keep spilling the syrup. So they're just leaving this sticky residue on the floor, all of this evidence.

And then about a year into the operation, a year of stealing from the Federation. The accountant from the beginning of this episode, Michelle Gavreau, shows up to do his audit at the warehouse. And this is when he ends up almost falling from the stack of barrels and discovery. that a bunch of them are empty. Well, also even that, like, the narrative that you painted in that moment in this case is so comical. Like, this man climbing barrels that weigh 600 pounds, getting to the top and, like, 14,375.

14,370. Like wobbling on top of an empty barrel, scared to fall into the sticky warehouse floor. It so doesn't seem real. Right. It's comical. But, yeah, so this is when he basically realizes that. some are empty and some have been filled with water. So the Federation now realizes they have been robbed and they are pissed.

Lucky for them, they are a government entity and the Quebec provincial police launch a full-on investigation. And from the get-go, they know this is not just like a one-off casual random theft. Like this is such a massive scale that this like was more elaborate. And although it only started off with three guys. Right. Which is very impressive. But the amount, they're like, it has.

to have, like this didn't happen like overnight, you know? Oh, yes. It's been going on for a long time. Which also insinuates to them that this is an inside job because it had to be someone who can consistently show up to the warehouse without raising too many alarm bells. So while the police are trying to figure out who had access to the warehouse, they're also trying to figure out where all the maple syrup is and who has been buying it. And that is what brings them to Etienne, Saint-Pierre, in September of 2012, who is the syrup reseller in New Brunswick, Canada. So I'm not sure the specifics of how they tracked him down, but basically there was enough evidence for them to issue a warrant.

So they show up at his business, and they have the warrant. But Etienne has a very feisty second in command, a great character for the movie, Julianne Boussay, who knows that warrant from Quebec. It's not valid in this province. Shushu. So she flips the bird to the cops. And according to Julian, she says she actually pretended to wipe her ass with the search warrant. Like, amazing. Love her.

This is a movie. Yeah. This is absolutely. But this is a comedy. I know. Sometimes. It's like cocaine bear, but he's successful. Most violent crimes that capture the public's imagination seem larger than life.

But sometimes the most terrifying criminals are right next door. And he's just yelling. Matarón Ami'iho, which translates to, they killed my son. On the Fear Thy Neighbor podcast from ID, we'll explore these true stories and hear what happens when neighborly disputes reached the point of no return. What do you want? Just this. Listen to Fear Thy Neighbor wherever you get your podcasts. So the cops come back about 12 hours later with a proper warrant now approved by a New Brunswick judge.

And they gain access into, well, they actually have the pry. Into the warehouse, like Etienne doesn't let them in. But they go into the warehouse with a crowbar. And inside they find more than a million dollars worth of maple syrup. I don't know why they didn't use it 12 hours to like move some of it. But maybe it was just too much. I don't know. Or like were they, were some people still waiting there watching? Yeah. Either way. With the evidence. They did discover. So when you back the truck up. And then you're like, oh, well, oops, you have a warrant to search the warehouse, but you don't have a warrant to search my truck. Anyway. See, they could have used me. Some lawyers out there being like, that's not how it works. That's not how it works. Yeah. So Etienne caught red-handed.

The officers seized Etienne's forklift, all of his syrup, all of his supplies. Everything is part of their investigation. And then they accuse him of knowingly buying stolen syrup, which he denies. And in denying it, he turns in everyone else, the rest of the gang. He tells cops that he got 700 to 800 barrels from Richard. And with this information, they now need evidence against Richard. So police interview around 300 people and they issue 40 search warrants. And it doesn't take them long before it all traces back to Richard, Sebastian, Avique, everybody.

Which I'm so sad. Like, I want them to get away. Me too. I think just like crack open the sewer gate and then they go down disappear in December of 2012 the cops arrest all three of them Richard and Avikar charged with conspiracy to commit theft and possession of stolen property and Sebastian also faces charges but he pleads guilty and he collaborates with the investigation and investigators and basically rats out the other two to get a lesser sentence which I'm not surprised I think that's common it is there's How is someone? Yeah, they turn on one another. In total, there are 16 arrests involved in this heist.

Sixteen people arrested. Wow. That included Etienne St. Pierre, who was charged with fraud for buying stolen syrup from a week and redistributing it. And also, this one makes me sad. Richard's dad. I know. Because he knowingly was allowing them to store the stolen syrup on his land in his farm.

So everyone was turning on each other. other, proving that every sweet deal eventually turns sticky. Got to have the puns. Okay, so now all of our thieves are finding themselves in sticky situations. There are multiple arrests being made and their trials are imminent. But it did take a few years for the investigators and officials to put all the pieces together because even in Canada, the judicial system is slow. So finally, in 2016, four years after his arrest, Richard Valierre goes to trial.

And at this point in the story, it becomes very clear that everyone involved in the highest and in case are starting to look out for themselves. Like everyone's turning on one another, so it's put yourself first. Put your own mask on, oxygen mask on first. Yeah. Help yourself before you help others. Help yourself before you backstab everyone. Or backstab everyone before they backstab you. Yeah, that's the one. So Etienne has turned on Richard. Sebastian has turned on Richard. So now Richard. is like, okay, well, I have to turn on someone now, too. So in court, he admits that he did refill the barrels of stolen syrup with water, but, but, but, but, he was forced to do it and was

held at gunpoint. Oh my gosh. He basically tells the court that Avik forced him to do it and threatened him and his family at gunpoint, the drama. He was claiming he was terrified, forced to commit these crimes or else that it was a matter of life or death, which unfortunately, no one buys. Well, also, like, why would Avic bring in a third party into a warehouse that he already has access to? Yeah. Owns. Doesn't need other witnesses. Yeah. That makes no sense. Richard was like, I have to try something. And unfortunately, it didn't work for that reason, for many reasons. But also, because Richard has already gotten in trouble with the Federation so many times. Like, this is not like this is his first time doing shady business with maple syrup. But no,

He has a record and a history of selling on the black market. A big theme at the trials was how much our band of thieves hated the Federation and its regulations. Sebastian testified that Richard said, Stealing from thieves is not stealing, which I agree with. I agree with that too. Meanwhile, Avic was scheduled to go to trial in early 2017, and initially he fought the charges, but then probably seeing the writing on the wall. He decided to plead guilty right before his trial was about to start.

And at his sentencing hearing, Avic also tried to off-put all of the blame and testify that the Montreal mob provided equipment and drivers. And the judge knew that that wasn't true because there was literally no evidence of any of that at all. But Avik also said that there was accomplices or an accomplice inside of the Federation. But apparently the cops investigated a Federation employee regarding the theft. but never charged them with a crime. So it's like maybe there was, maybe there wasn't, but it didn't seem like it was. They didn't have enough evidence of it.

Totally new information. Right. And then Avik lost it. He lashed out of the judge, cursed the judge out, and he got so up in arms that it was actually reported that Avik had to be restrained. So like when he realized like the jig was up that he wasn't going to get away with it, he lost the shit. So in the end, all the men we have spoken about,

the main players of the crime, Richard, Avik, Sebastian, Etienne, and sadly, Richard's dad, were convicted for their various roles in this scheme. Etienne was fined $1.3 million for his role in the heist. Richard's father had to pay, this is, I mean, it's a lot of money, but I think he was okay.

Yeah. The best sentencing, he had to pay around $10,000. Sebastian, the truck driver, served eight months in prison for transporting the swollen syrup. Avik, whose wife co-owned. the warehouse they robbed got five years and had to pay a $1.2 million fine. Then, like you said, after the sentencing, Avik freaked out even more, claiming his lawyer tricked him into pleading guilty that he wasn't actually guilty at all. And he's like, no, no, no, no, I take it all back. I demand a

trial. Yeah, just say whatever you can to try to get away with it. And it didn't work. He was restrained after getting very physical with a guard in the courtroom. And then finally, Richard, he got the longest sentence after being framed as the mastermind, which in a way he was, but also a weak and the last person approached him. Right. Yeah. He was the final party. He wasn't the one with the idea, but I think he was the one with the connections power, he was the essential equation person. Was he really? I don't know. Probably doesn't matter because what matters is the courts did see him as the mastermind, and he was sentenced to eight years in prison. And a $9 million fine. Nine million dollars. Yeah. It did get reduced to $1 million on appeal. Which is still crazy. It's a lot.

But then Canada's Supreme Court overturned that. And they were like, actually, no, you are responsible for the full $9 million. Dang. Playing with his emotions, can you imagine? You like go in thinking that they're going to be like, actually, you don't need the $1 million either. They're like, oh, we're increasing it by $8 million again. Back up to nine. And what of the Federation, you may ask, this legal mafia in Canada, they faced no real consequences. Sorry? Yeah.

Sorry. Sorry? What? Aside from public embarrassment and the millions of dollars of maple syrup that was stolen, they faced no real consequences. Canada, you're forgiven for giving us heated rivalry. And also that maple syrup never really belonged to them anyway. But the Federation did have insurance. So they say that they were able to reimburse all of the producers whose maple syrup was stolen, which I hope is true.

Yes. And I'm not encouraging you, our jury, the listeners of our podcast, to go do some massive maple syrup heist. But I also do really understand why Richard and this group did it. I feel like there's obviously, as we've portrayed in this episode, major corruption and a lot of other issues regarding the Federation and how they manage the control over the Maple Sea Supply. It has some vigilante energy to it, for sure. I was rooting for the thieves the entire time. Me too, which is like it's tough. It's technically a crime, but it's like which crime happened first? Was the Federation the first crime? It kind of seemed like it was.

You know what this reminds me of? You said something the other day that kind of like made my mind going. whoa. I was like talking about a crime scene and you're like, well, not every crime scene needs to have a body. And it was kind of like you told me like every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square. But I feel like when it comes to like true crime, we never really You think of like a murder. You think of murder. But this is this is one where I'm glad no one was harmed. And I was full on on this on the side of the thieves rooting for them. Yeah, me too. I think I said it in the first 30 seconds of the recording. You heard maple syrup and corruption, you're like, whoever's doing good for maple syrup,

I'm on their side. Yeah. They're not throwing the syrup away. They're giving it to the people. Exactly. And there are a lot of maple syrup producers, and a lot of people just generally, Corin and I included, who feel the same way as the thieves and viewed them as heroes for standing up against a system that was very, very unfair.

Yeah. And the Federation, while embarrassed about what happened for sure, it has faced criticism over the years and remains unchanged. Sad. The only changes they've made are enhancing their security of their warehouses. And to this day, the Federation remains firmly in control of the Canadian maple syrup supply. And therefore, most of the maple syrup supply worldwide. And just because they caught these barrel rollers does not mean that they put an end to black market maple syrup dealings.

No, that is still very prominent today, but those barrel rollers just know that they cannot steal from the Federation directly. Which, in a way, does mean that we could be consuming black market maple syrup without knowing it. Not to, like, encourage another crime upon a crime, but like, how do they know if a sugaring operation has overproduced? Can this kind of be like where you don't declare all of your earnings on? I'm sure that exists too, yeah. Can you just say you didn't have as much syrup that year? But they control the sales of it, too. So then you would have to sell your overproduction on the black market, which I encourage.

Do it. Or say that you only sold 70 gallons to this one person who happens to be your cousin. And then your cousin sells the way larger amount. There's waste to commit crime. Kren is basically a barrel roller now. I feel passionate about this. I think this is the one crime I could get in on. You're going to start a consulting business. It's just how to sell maple syrup on the black market. The rules are I have to taste test the syrup first. You have to mine and dine me with your syrup.

Okay. That's a good deal. Anyway, actually. That's how you get paid? Yeah. Just in maple syrup. Okay, this is the final piece of the case, because what happened to the millions of dollars of maple syrup that the group did successfully steal? It's in all of our bellies. Because they only discovered about one million of the $18 million of maple syrup that was stolen when they were at Etienne's warehouse. So where did the rest go? Apparently, about two-thirds of the stolen syrup was located, but only about one-seventh of it was actually recovered.

The rest of it was sent to stores in the U.S. So that means it's even more likely that we are consuming stolen black market maple syrup. Vermont maple syrup. And then you look at the bag and you're like, well, we're in Vermont. The Federation Accedolean. This case has definitely left a mark in the world of true crime and in our hearts because it's just so weird and it's so fun. And we recommend watching the episode on Netflix in the series Dirty Money because it's a really good one. Also, we have not personally watched this, but in 2024, Amazon released a fictional series called The Sticky, which is inspired by this heist.

Also, being called Sticky is such a good street name. That is. Criminal name. Hey, Sticky. I'm looking for Sticky. We're Sticky. That's your barrel roller name. Yes.

Anyway, that's next on our watch. Oh, I absolutely have to watch that. And then stay tuned for future, who knows how many years down the line, the movie that we're going to make about it. Featuring Seth Rogen. He's already signed on. He's the only person who casts so far. He's perfect. He lives in Canada.

Yeah, great. Well, thank you so much. for listening. We are your hosts, Sabrina Deanna Roga and Corin Vienne.N. V.N. Join us next Tuesday for another peek inside another crimes of deception. And if there are any cases that you would like us to cover, please let us know in the comments. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. And if you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Crimes of wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes the difference. And with that, the trial is over.

Goodbye, George. You are dismissed. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's most infamous crimes. Each week, I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases in American history.

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