Two trucks containing approximately US$1 million worth of Santo Tequila have been stolen after crossing the US-Mexico border.
Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar’s Santo Tequila suffered an improbable setback earlier this month when two trucks were stolen. In total, 4,040 cases, or 24,240 bottles, were stolen, including 40 cases of the brand’s extra añejo single barrel expression.
“For a growing company like Santo, it’s really a shame for something like this to happen in the middle of our strongest year to date and right before the holidays,” said former Van Halen vocalist Hagar. “Anyone that knows business knows that this is a gigantic setback for any independently-owned company in a hugely competitive market. But Guy and I are not the type to sit back and whine over spilled Tequila.”
The trucks were headed toward warehouses in California and Pennsylvania, but were reported stolen in Laredo, Texas, which sits directly on the the US-Mexico border. The Santo team was notified of the theft on 14 November.
The company’s trucking partner, Johanson, noticed suspicious behaviour over the weekend of 9 to 10 November, according to an incident report. Johanson then discovered that the the trucks had been illegally double-brokered, by which a motor carrier accepts a shipment only to resell the order to a different carrier.
“We believe the GPS tracking signal we were monitoring was spoofed by a GPS emulator application used by the criminals,” a report obtained by People, reads.
According to updates provided by Santo, one truck was tracked to a known criminal cargo area in Los Angeles where it was offloaded on the street. The second truck has not been located.
The distillery is working to reproduce the lost inventory, but a best-case scenario is a 40-day window to be out of stock.
“We are fully cooperating with the authorities on the investigation, but as of Sunday [17 November], they haven’t identified any possible culprits,” Santo CEO Dan Butkus said. “While we leave the investigation up to law enforcement, our primary focus right now is to work with our distillery partner in Mexico to replenish the stolen goods in time for the important holiday shopping season and with our shipping company to safeguard this from happening again in the future.”
Fieri is offering a US$10,000 reward to anyone who finds the trucks.
Santo Tequilas are produced at El Viejito Distillery (NOM 1107) in Atotonilco el Alto, Jalisco.
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Author: Ted Simmons
