Some cargo thieves in Philadelphia have expensive taste when it comes to bourbon.
On Friday, June 5, A21 Wine and Spirits announced that roughly 1,800 cases of Noble Oak Bourbon had been stolen from a Philadelphia warehouse. Officials from the company said the crime was carried out “in broad daylight” and that they believe it to be part of a “coordinated cargo theft operation.”
The company said the theft occurred sometime between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on June 5, when thieves made off with 18 pallets of Noble Oak Bourbon valued at roughly $500,000. According to police, the driver of a tractor-trailer drove up to the warehouse, showed identification and loaded the pallets of bourbon before driving off.
Rob Koch, chief operating officer of Apogee 21 Holdings, the parent company of Noble Oak and A21 Wine & Spirits, told The New York Times that the warehouse attempted to vet the driver by calling the shipping broker. When the broker told the warehouse that there was, in fact, a driver coming to pick up the shipment, they loaded up the pallets and “let the guy go.”
A company spokesperson said the stolen alcohol was one of the largest known bourbon thefts in the region this year and that it “highlights growing concerns throughout the beverage alcohol and transportation industries” about thieves targeting high-value products.
“We are treating this as a serious criminal matter and are fully cooperating with law enforcement authorities,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “The theft involved a significant quantity of premium bourbon from our newly acquired brand, Noble Oak, and appears to have been executed with knowledge of logistics operations and product movement schedules.”
The company is asking distributors, retailers, restaurants, bars, brokers, freight operators and consumers to be on the lookout for stolen inventory being resold by thieves and to report any large quantities of Noble Oak Bourbon being sold outside traditional channels.
In its statement, the company said it was particularly interested in receiving information related to:
- Unusually discounted offers of Noble Oak Bourbon
- Large-volume inventory offered by unauthorized sellers
- Suspicious warehouse storage activity involving alcohol products
- Transportation or brokerage activity involving recently acquired Noble Oak inventory
- Online listings offering significant quantities of Noble Oak Bourbon
A21 Wine and Spirits said the theft has been reported to the FBI and local law enforcement authorities, and that an active investigation is ongoing. LL
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