Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Got Rich Stealing Maple Syrup - The Great Maple Syrup Heist

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

The Great Maple Syrup Heist took place in Quebec, Canada, between 2011 and 2012, when thieves stole nearly 3,000 tons of maple syrup valued at about $18 million USD from a warehouse belonging to the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers

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After three months, plan auto renews and 1299 a month, terms apply. So this guy is about to make millions of dollars, not by robbing a bank, but by stealing pancake syrup. Now the guy's name is Richard, and Richard's about 33 when this story starts, living in Canada, and he's the kind of guy who's just a shady dude. Bro sells maple syrup on the black market. I didn't even know there was a black market for that, but apparently there is one, and Richard sells it on the black market to distributors, And eventually he gets busted and he's forced to pay a $1.8 million fine and they end up seizing his house because of it.

Because apparently Canadians take their maple syrup super seriously. Anyway, this pisses Richard off and he's all salty about getting busted for years. And he starts wanting revenge on the organization that got him busted. The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, which is a government-sanctioned entity that regulates the production. of syrup. Why does that exist? And so, Richard comes up with a plan to rip them off and make himself very rich in the process. He's going to steal a bunch of maple syrup from them, like millions of dollars worth. And so fast forward to 2011, and Richard is still trying to carry out this plan. And he partners up with this guy, Avik. And so together, Richard and Avik ran out

a part of a warehouse and they open up a small business there. Because in another part of this warehouse, next to their business, are a bunch of maple syrup reserves where they keep thousands of barrels of syrup. And the place kind of looks like this. There's just a bunch of white barrels in a warehouse. And so, Richard and Avik's plan is to have Avic steal thousands of these barrels of reserve maple syrup, and then Richard will buy the barrels from Avik and resell them to distributors. And if you're like, Ray, why are they stealing maple syrup?

That's just stupid. Just like steal money or something. I know, but keep in mind, maple syrup is actually worth a lot of money. During this time in 2011, a barrel of syrup is worth about 12 times more than a barrel of crude oil. So this shit has value. Anyway, so they're all ready for this heist. And I guess one day, once the warehouse is closed for the day, they enter the area where they keep the maple syrup.

reserves. And this is a whole operation, like they use forklifts and they load a bunch of of barrels of syrup onto a trailer, and then they hold the load out to a remote shack and they siphon all the syrup out of those barrels and into new barrels. Then they fill the old barrels up with water and they put them back in the warehouse so that it looks like nothing was ever stolen as long as, you know, no one opens up one of the barrels. And they don't do all this in one night. They do like a few barrels at a time here and there over a long period. at a time so that the heist isn't so obvious. However, the problem is this process is very slow, and it takes a lot of time and effort. And so Richard comes up with a slightly better plan,

and they start doing the siphoning at the actual warehouse, and instead of using new barrels, they just use a big tanker truck. And then they fill the barrels up with water after they empty them, but later they get lazy, and they don't replace the syrup with water at all. They don't fill the barrels up with anything, they just leave them empty. And that will become an issue later. So anyway, they keep doing this over and over and over again. And by 2012, they've stolen 9,500 barrels of maple syrup from this place, which is worth more than $18 million Canadian dollars, which at the time was worth about $18 million US dollars. So what do they do with all this syrup? Well, they haul it over to a different province and they divide it up and they sell it to

syrup distributors. I guess syrup distributors are like cheap syrup. All right. And as absurd as this sounds, Richard and Avik's operation is so smooth that they just keep getting away with it. Until. So thus far, I've only talked about Richard and Avic. But it's not just these two guys. There are actually like 25 people involved in this scheme, including some warehouse workers, warehouse security guard, and some other people who help sell it on the black market, people like that. But let's just focus on Richard and Avic because they're the most guilty. Now, at some point in 2012, it's time for the maple syrup reserve to get an inspection.

It's the inspection they do every year. It's basically like an audit of their inventory. And Richard knows this audit is coming and he's like, Oh shit, they're gonna check the barrels and they're gonna know the syrup is missing. And they have to scramble and like clean up any evidence in the warehouse and they stack all the barrels back exactly the way they were stacked before. And Avik, he's like hitting up some of their co-conspirators and he's like threatening them saying if they talk to police, he's gonna shoot him in the head over fucking pancake syrup.

Anyway, so inspection day comes and the inspector shows up to the warehouse and he starts the audit. And he's looking around the place and everything looks normal to him. And he starts climbing on top of a stack of the barrels to get a better look. And because these things weigh like 600 pounds each, they're obviously not going to fall over. Except that when the inspector walks on top of one of them, suddenly, boom, a barrel nearly falls over and he has to catch himself. And he's like, what the fuck? And he gets down and he knocks on the barrel and it sounds hollow. And so he opens it and he looks inside and he sees that it's completely empty.

But he doesn't immediately assume it's theft, like that would be ridiculous. He's probably like, oh, they forgot to fill that barrel or whatever. But then he opens another one. And then he opens another one and another one and they're all empty. Then he finds a bunch of them had rusted. And he opens those up and he sees that they had rusted because they had been filled with water. And he's like, oh, I think someone's stealing your soul. syrup. And so he calls the Federation of Quebec maple syrup producers and he tells them what he found.

And they're like, empty barrels. Uh-huh. And they come and they do an emergency count of the whole place and they find that 9,500 barrels are missing, which is like 12.5% of their entire reserve. And this is such a big deal that they bring in the Canadian police, who I assume are on horseback because, you know, they're probably not, but I just like to imagine that. So anyway, the Canadian police, they show up and search the whole facility. But they don't really find much. And they don't have a lot to work with because the place doesn't have security cameras because who the hell would steal syrup? I guess Richard and Avikwood, that's who. Now, during the police's investigation, they start thinking, you know, this might have been an inside job. So they start looking at people who would have

had access to the property, aka Richard. And so they go and they question him. And he's like, I don't know anything about that, eh? But he's not the only person. person police question, they bring in everyone connected to the warehouse, employees, owners, contractors, along with other people who are just affiliated with the maple syrup black market, which again, I can't believe there's an actual black market for fucking maple syrup. Anyway, over the next several months, police spend a lot of time tracking down all the stolen syrup that was sold to other people, and they find a bunch of it, but, you know, they can't recover all of it because it's food. Distributors sold it to people and, you know, people ate it.

But eventually, they find the source as Richard. And so, bam, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. Also, bam, they arrest Avik. Here's his mugshot. And, you know, it's not just these two. They arrest the other 25 other people involved in this scheme, and a bunch of them get sentenced to prison.

And Avic actually gets five years in prison, while Richard, he gets eight years.