'Grinch tequila heist': Some of the tequila bottles stolen from NC-based company found in Los Angeles area
A Wilmington-based spirits company announced Wednesday the partial recovery of 19,000 bottles of tequila allegedly stolen in December.
On Monday, Hacienda Chactun Tequila said the Los Angeles Police Department detectives contacted them. Chactun said police detectives discovered some pallets of the tequila during another unrelated criminal investigation in the Los Angeles area.
“This theft has really rocked our January launch - not only because of the loss of product, but also because we watched so much of our hard work vanish into thin air,” said Mark Milliken, CEO of Chactun Tequila. “We exhausted every lead on our end to try and recover the tequila and so now we are so thankful for the detectives at the LAPD who inadvertently recovered some of our product.
“The detectives assured us that these types of fictitious pickups are sadly commonplace, so to help ensure we never go through this again, we have partnered with Wilmington-based shipping logistics company MegaCorp Logistics LLC to serve us in the future.”
The company said detectives found stolen goods they were looking for from several cases, including Chactun.
A company spokesperson said authorities recovered nine pallets.
"Sadly though, we plan to destroy all those bottles once we claim them from evidence this week," the spokesperson wrote in an email to WRAL News. "Although the seals appear to be intact, these bottles were not in our possession and supervision, so we would never want our consumers to be at risk."
It’s unclear if authorities made any arrests.
According to Chactun, freight drivers conducted a “fictitious pickup” on Dec. 21, 2023. The company called it the “grinch tequila heist,” saying freight drivers reported to shipping company Landstar International that they had picked up the freight of 19,000 bottles of tequila from Mexico and were on the way to North Carolina. Instead, the company said drivers were on their way to California.
