The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist took place over several months between 2011 and 2012, when thieves siphoned 3,330 tons of maple syrup from a facility in Quebec.
mauritius images GmbH / Alamy Stock PhotoCans of maple syrup from Quebec, which is a tightly regulated substance.
In July 2012, an inspector from the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers set out to conduct a routine check of the maple syrup stored at the Saint-Louis-de-Blandford strategic reserve. To his horror, he found that some of the barrels were empty — and some had been emptied of syrup and filled with water. The inspector had just stumbled upon a months-long theft of maple syrup now known as the Great Maple Syrup Heist.
As investigators later determined, a group of thieves had started siphoning maple syrup from the the Saint-Louis-de-Blandford strategic reserve in 2011. Over the next several months, they managed to steal more than 3,000 tons of maple syrup worth $18 million without anyone noticing.
Since Quebec produces some 70 percent of the world’s maple syrup, this was serious business. The Great Maple Syrup Heist led to a years-long investigation, dozens of arrests, and an unexpected pop culture adaptation.
How The Great Maple Syrup Heist Was Uncovered
In Quebec, maple syrup production is an important business. In 1966, the Québec Maple Syrup Producers (QMSP) was established to set annual quotas for maple syrup producers and to oversee the production and sale of maple products from Quebec. In 2000, QMSP established strategic reserves across the province and, because of a surplus of maple syrup in 2011, opened up an extra facility in the small town of Saint-Louis-de-Blandford.
However, while the thousands of barrels of maple syrup were worth millions — roughly $30 million — the facility lacked adequate security. The building had no cameras, no alarms, and only one guard on duty.
Image Professionals GmbH / Alamy Stock PhotoMaple syrup for sale in Canada.
Over several months in 2011 and 2012, a group of thieves started quietly draining syrup from the barrels. They either replaced it with water or left the barrels empty. No one noticed until July 2012.
Then, an inspector named Michel Gavreau was conducting an inventory check when he climbed up the 600-pound barrels and one of them tipped over, according to reporting from Today in 2024. That’s when he knew something was wrong. The barrels of syrup should have been heavy enough to support his weight. But one of the barrels was completely empty.
Gavreau’s routine inspection revealed a shocking truth. Upon further investigation, inspectors found that thousands of barrels were empty or filled with water. The syrup meant to stabilize an entire industry had been stolen right out from under everyone’s noses.
So who was behind the Great Maple Syrup Heist?
Following The Trail Of Maple Syrup
Once the QMSP realized what had happened, they called in Quebec’s provincial police force, the Sûreté du Québec, to investigate. According to reporting from The New York Times in 2012, investigators swiftly determined the Maple Syrup Heist was an inside job. The thieves had rented another part of the warehouse, which allowed them to come and go without notice.
Indeed, the Maple Syrup Heist wasn’t a one-person operation. The thieves were a team of truck drivers, syrup dealers, and sugar shack workers all working together to pull off the heist. People with warehouse access quietly moved the barrels to other storage sites. From there, they sold the syrup to unsuspecting buyers in Ontario, New Brunswick, and the United States.
Once the syrup was sold, it was nearly impossible to trace. Most of it had been consumed or blended into legal batches before anyone realized it was stolen. In the end, only about 25 percent of the syrup was ever recovered.
During the investigation, police interviewed more than 200 people and 26 suspects were arrested, but they soon narrowed in on the man they believed orchestrated the scheme: Richard Vallières. Known in syrup circles as a “barrel roller” for finding ways around QMSP regulations, Vallières had reportedly been operating in the syrup black market for years.
IMDBRichard Vallières, the ringleader of the Great Maple Syrup Heist.
Vallières also had motive — revenge. In 2007, he had been fined $1.8 million by the QMSP for selling maple syrup illegally. Indeed, Vallières admitted to police in 2014 that he had been involved in the maple syrup black market for a decade before the Great Maple Syrup Heist.
He claimed that a man named Avik Caron — whose spouse co-owned the warehouse where the barrels were kept — had first told him about the strategic reserve of maple syrup in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford. According to reporting from the Montreal Gazette in 2022, it was Caron who first suggested stealing maple syrup from the facility.
Caron was sentenced to five years in prison and fined $1.2 million. Valliéres was sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $9.1 million. He has ten years to pay the fine; otherwise he’ll be sentenced to additional time.
Three other men were also convicted, though they received shorter sentences. But not everyone involved in the elaborate scheme was caught. More than a dozen people had participated in the Great Maple Syrup Heist, and most of them vanished into the wind.
But the story of their elaborate theft left a definite mark on popular culture. After the Great Maple Syrup Heist appeared in the Netflix series Dirty Money in 2018, it was fictionalized for an Amazon Prime series.
The Aftermath and the Pop Culture Twist
In 2023, Amazon Prime released The Sticky, a dark comedy based on the crime. The show features fictional characters and exaggerated plotlines but is loosely based on the true story of the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist. It centers around a ragtag group of thieves and a small-town syrup producer trying to take down the “cartel” that controls syrup prices.
Jan Thijs/AmazonA scene from The Sticky, Amazon’s comedic take on the infamous Canadian maple syrup heist.
Showrunner Brian Donovan first heard the story of the Great Maple Syrup Heist at a family Christmas party — and was immediately intrigued.
“I was at a boring family Christmas party, just looking for anything interesting to talk about,” he recalled to the CBC in 2024. “Fortunately, my brother-in-law is Canadian, and he was like, ‘Hey, have you heard of the great maple syrup heist?’ And I said, ‘No, but please tell me everything about it right now.’ And he did. He told me all about the crime, and then he also told me about Montreal and the different mafia groups that are there, and all the fascinating things about the area.”
The Sticky is a dark comedy, but the Great Maple Syrup Heist was serious business in Quebec — and remains one of Canada’s most notorious crimes. Over a matter of months, thieves were able to steal more than 3,000 tons of maple syrup from nearly 10,000 barrels, pilfering $18 million worth of the precious substance. Though some of the stolen maple syrup was recovered, thousands of barrels worth millions of dollars were never found.
In the end, Great Maple Syrup Heist exposed weaknesses in the QMSP’s storage practices — and the strategic reserve has since beefed-up security. But the damage was done. When adjusted for inflation, The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist is still the most expensive theft in the country’s history. And who knows how many people — in Canada and the United States — consumed illegal maple syrup from the heist without even knowing it.
After learning about the great maple syrup heist, read about the Antwerp Diamond Heist. Then, check out this article on the Lufthansa Heist, made famous by the movie “Goodfellas.”
