Two trucks carrying Santo Tequila have gone missing in a double heist, costing the label around a million dollars. The company, co-owned by Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar, is reeling from the hit. The distillery is now working 24/7 to recover losses.
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Fieri told PEOPLE that 24,240 bottles (440 cases) of their tequila were stolen. Among the losses was a product that took 4 years to make, extra añejo. The foodie says he was especially upset about missing the 39-month creation.
This heist is not only a financial hit to their sales but affects the supply chain to a hazardous degree. Dan Butkus, Santo president, detailed that their distiller is an "independent distiller who's dependent on [Santo's] sales for his livelihood and that of his team." In turn, his team and staff are also dependant on the sales of the tequila.
Fieri told the outlet, "This is our best year we've ever had in Santo. We just had all this momentum, and now whatever's on the shelf is all people are going to get."
"We worked so hard."
Fieri Believes Santo Was Targeted To Diminish Their Success
PEOPLE obtained an incident report of the theft. In it, the Santo's trucking partner, Johanson, discovered that the cargo had been "illegally double brokered" to different carriers.
"We believe the GPS tracking signal we were monitoring was spoofed by a GPS emulator application used by the criminals," the report stated.
Butkus is astounded at the incredible effort. "I've never seen anything like this," he admits. "It's so out of the ordinary, out of the norm, that we're wondering why our trucks may have been targeted."
Fieri believes that Santo was hit specifically to hinder the company after their success. He says, "I mean, one is one. But now you've got to have double the amount of people to pull off the double heist. It just seems so much riskier to take two trucks."
Laredo police, Los Angeles' Cargo Criminal Apprehension Team and CargoNet are on the case, although Butkus isn't optimistic that the trucks will be found. Despite this, Fieri is offering $10,000 for information relating to the heist, specifically in an effort to recover the extra añejo.
Some online are skeptical about this audacious robbery, claiming that this was an inside job to make their product seem scarcer to promote their sales. Such claims from strangers on the internet must always be taken with a pinch of salt, although it wouldn't be the craziest stunt pulled off for the sake of profits.
