Today’s post features a photograph of sterilized metal barrels used for storing maple syrup before it gets transfered to bottles for retail consumption. These particular barrels are waiting for the sweet stuff in the barn at Williams Farm in Wyebridge, Ontario. When full, one of these barrels weighs roughly 200 Kg and is worth $3,640 retail (140 litres @ $26/litre). Even with today’s stratospheric prices for Brent Crude, a barrel of maple syrup is worth roughly 23 times a barrel of oil.
Given the value of the product, it should come as no surprise that somebody decided it might be lucrative to steal maple syrup. However, what does come as a surprise is that when somebody finally got around to stealing maple syrup, they did so on a scale that places them in the same company as drug kingpins and major crime bosses. From 2011 to 2012, a small coterie stole nearly 10,000 barrels of maple syrup worth more than CDN $18 million at a time when the Canadian dollar was trading above par. (Note that the FPAQ barrels are larger than the ones pictured here.)
The thieves stole the product directly from the Global Strategic Reserve. At that time, the body that managed the reserve was called the Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec (FPAQ). It kept the reserve in a number of warehouses scattered throughout rural Québec. After a bumper year, it had to lease more space and perhaps was a little lax in ensuring that the additional space had proper security. The owner of the warehouse also leased space to her husband, Avik Caron, who, along with some associates, periodically transferred barrels off site where they drained them and refilled them with water. Since the product is perfectly fungible, it was easy for them to ship out of province where they sold it to unsuspecting buyers.
As the scheme continued, the thieves grew lazy or perhaps cocky. They stopped refilling the barrels with water and started returning them empty to the Reserve. In July 2012, an FPAQ representative came to the site to conduct an annual inventory and almost knocked over one of the barrels. If it had been full, the barrel wouldn’t have budged. From there, forensic investigators took over and discovered the extent of the theft.
You can read more about the heist on the History 101 web site or you can watch Dirty Money on Netflix, Season 1, Episode 5 “The Maple Syrup Heist.” Apparently, Sony optioned the story in 2013, but nothing has happened since then. This isn’t the only time people have tried to steal maple syrup. In 2016, someone intercepted a 20,000 litre shipment bound for Japan worth $150,000. As far as I can tell, the thieves got away with the crime.
Things are a little different at Williams Farm. As an Ontario farm, it falls outside the purview of the FPAQ (now the PPAQ). From a Québec point of view, you might say that Ontario product is part of the black market. Since Ontario producers don’t funnel their product through the PPAQ, most of it passes relatively quickly into the hands (or mouths) of consumers. That means there just aren’t the same opportunities in Ontario to commit large scale maple syrup capers.
The band, Trent Severn, celebrates the heist with a song called Stealin’ Syrup:
