Guy Fieri got a crash course in a new type of high-tech crime after two semitrucks carrying 24,000 bottles of tequila from his company vanished.
It sounds like a storyline straight out of Hollywood: two semitrucks carrying more than $1 million worth of Santo Tequila, a brand co-founded by Food Network star Guy Fieri and former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar, vanish on their way to the warehouse. But in this highway heist, there was no hijacking, and the drivers weren’t in on it. So what happened to those 24,000 bottles of tequila?
It turns out international crime groups have found new ways to infiltrate the global supply chain online to steal hundreds of millions of dollars of goods. Last November, Fieri got a crash course in the sophisticated high-tech crime that’s roiling the trucking industry and the U.S. businesses that rely on it.
«My mind is swimming in exactly how do you lose, you know, that many thousands of bottles of tequila», Fieri said.How Santo Tequila found out something went wrong
The tequila started out like every other Santo batch: in Western Mexico, where it was distilled and bottled. From there, it was trucked to the U.S.-Mexico border, went through customs and was unloaded in Laredo, Texas.
Santo doesn’t have its own delivery trucks, and instead relies on a logistics company to hire trucking companies to ship its tequila, according to Santo Spirits CEO Dan Butkus.
The day after the tequila arrived in Texas, it was moved into two semitrucks that were supposed to head to the Santo Tequila warehouse in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. The tequila was due at the Pennsylvania warehouse on a Wednesday, but didn’t arrive, Butkus said. The logistics company told Santo there was a slight delay due to a water pump cooler problem with the truck.
On Friday, two days after the shipment was supposed to arrive, Butkus was told there was more than just a water pump issue with the truck. The logistics company emailed him a video they said they’d received of a broken down semi with a note: «Looks like the issue is bigger than he thought. Mechanics advised the truck will be fixed Saturday…he says he can deliver Sunday but I know y’all are closed so he can be there first thing Monday.»
Still, Butkus wasn’t alarmed. Delays like this aren’t uncommon and GPS tracking monitored by the logistics company showed the truck near Washington, D.C., where it was supposed to be on its route to Pennsylvania.
«Then on Monday, we get an email that the truck is close, ‘GPS says it’s within a couple miles of our warehouse in Lansdale, can you let us know when it arrives?'» Butkus said.
