The Great Syrup Heist!

I love a good heist movie.

There’s the Italian Job, the Bank Job, the Inside Man and coming you a theater near you, the Syrup Job.

If you’re a syrup lover, as am I, we recently avoided a major dilemma that could have had prices on Log Cabin going through the roof. On Tuesday three men were arrested in conjunction with the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist of 2012. The syrup, estimated to be worth over $18 million, was stolen over the summer. Police have tracked down two-thirds of the missing goods, most of which poured across the border into the U.S.

The province of Quebec produces 75 percent of the world’s supply of maple syrup. Canada has an OPEC-like organization that oversees the syrup distribution known as the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers. You have to love how sweet Canada is. Whereas Mexico has drug smugglers, Canada has a syrup cartel. Canada also has a strategic maple syrup reserve similar to the United States’ strategic oil reserve. The reserve is what the thieves targeted. Without its reserve, the Federation would have been forced to jack up the prices on every bottle of syrup from here to Pancake, West Virginia.

The reserve was harvested back in 2011 when the sugar maples were gushing sap like chocolate in Mr. Wonka’s factory. The Federation had to open up an extra warehouse to store its river of syrup. The surplus was pasteurized and stored in 16,000 drums, each containing 54 gallons. That’s 864,000 gallons or enough to fill 30 average-sized in-ground swimming pools. The syrup was ignored except for the occasional inspection. It was ripe for the picking. So, the thieves rented out an adjacent part of the building, drove in a few trucks, and siphoned out the syrup.

The caper wasn’t exactly straight out of Hollywood because the crooks got caught. The thieves never get arrested in a proper heist movie. First of all, it takes more than three guys to pull off a first-class heist. There should be a minimum of five. One guy has to be the mastermind, able to acquire the capital needed for the heist (Think George Clooney or Marky Mark). Another guy has to be the driver, able to navigate mini-Coopers through subway tunnels or over the fountains at the Bellagio. Another team member has to be an explosives expert. He can acquire enough dynamite to level a large mountain. The dynamite can be installed in about 12 minutes and detonated with a Wii controller. Also, every heist squad needs a computer geek who can program the White House Keurig machine with his smart phone or shut down all the electricity in the western hemisphere with an iPad.

Heist teams usually have a beautiful woman to cause any needed diversions or seduce a security guard or two. The group should have an international flair with someone from England, as well as an African-American or an Asian-American. It’s always good when you can get an African-American with a British accent (think Don Cheadle) or a pretty woman who can blow things up.

Lastly, the team has to have a set of blueprints, preferably downloaded by the computer guru. Because the internet apparently holds the blueprints to every building constructed since the Civil War.  

If Hollywood doesn’t produce a movie about the stolen syrup, perhaps A&E or Bravo can turn it into a television series. It can be the sequel to Breaking Bad. In Breaking Sap, Walter White and his partner Jesse Pinkman move to Canada and start their own illegal syrup producing lab. Mr. White uses his chemistry background to mix up the sweetest, purest tasting maple syrup outside of Vermont and slowly begins to eat away at the Federation’s monopoly of the world’s market. Walt and Jesse are able to get their syrup into every Denny’s and IHOP on the eastern seaboard. Walt wants to be the Syrup King of North America. The only thing in his way is the Federation and its vast reserve. Walt decides he has to steal it all.

To steal the syrup, Walt will need a top-notch heist team. Once he has the syrup he can move it across the border and attempt to put Mrs. Butterworth and Aunt Jemima out of business.

Hmm? Perhaps reality isn’t any stranger than fiction. But its probably much more stickier. Just ask the three guys who were arrested Tuesday.