Discussion»Questions»Food and Drink» What would you do with 18 million dollars worth of maple syrup? Seriously, a guy stole this amount of syrup up in Canada a few years back.
That is creatively, awesomely COOL!! It was the oddest thing to me. We were watching "Mysteries at the Museum" last night and this story came up. It began when the tax guy was taking inventory in storage and accidentally knocked over a 600 pound barrel of syrup. What's wrong with that statement? One normal tax auditor cannot physically knock over a 600 lbs barrel of syrup. Hmmmm. He opened it to find not syrup but a little water. This inspired him to bring the big boys in and dig deeper into the inventory only to find out of 160,000 barrels only 10,000 had syrup. The rest were empty or filled with water. Where had all the syrup gone? Furthermore, who would do such a thing and where were they storing it? hey did solve the mystery and the guy got 8 years in jail. I guess every year was worth 10 million dollars of maple syrup. A pretty sticky case if I do say so myself. ;) ;)
He redistributed it back to the companies and communities. No one knew the difference on the shelves. As a buyer for a store, I would wonder about the drastic change in the representative. But, I guess he got away with it for years!!
Maple Syrup is a hot commodity in many places; Asia Pacific being one that comes to mind. Depending on how it was packed would determine where it would be fenced.
If it was already bottled I would offshore it to China or similar. Steam the original labels off, replace them with a bogus ones then sell the product to an Asian Grocery Reseller or Diverter. Dummy paper work is no problem in China.
If it was bulk containers even simpler. Bottle the product in the US or Canada and sell it straight up to vendors at flea markets or farmers markets. I might even try to ship it to Asia where I would get a premium.
Excellent points Archerchef. I think that is how he did it. It was on Mysteries at the Museum last night. I thought it was a pretty outlandish story. I mean, who would think to do such a thing? I would never of thought maple syrup to be a hot commodity. It's just one of those things I guess I take for granted when I go to the grocery store. Next time, I'll think twice when I go down the syrup isle. ;)
Just got back from Japan, small bottles Grade B, 150ml, go for around $20. Grade A goes for a lot higher. China it is even more expensive. Aisa has developed a taste for Maple Syrup and Pecans
Open a maple kitchen.............sell maple sugar, maple fudge, maple syrup, maple nut candy, maple barbeque sauce, maple glazed hams, etc. etc. It would be an online store since I'm not into working very hard these days.
Nanoose 