There’s something about a wild crime that captures public interest in a unique way.
Call it curiosity or just a thirst for a juicy story, incidents of boozy burglaries and liquid larcenies of all kinds dominate media headlines. The alcohol industry has a complex relationship and deep history with crime due to Prohibition.
From 1920 to 1933, the U.S. was in the throes of the “noble experiment,” and purchasing and consuming alcohol was illegal.
Yet, this booze ban backfired in many ways, forging a robust underground economy run by gangsters, moonshiners and sex workers, among others. These individuals from the margins of society were well acquainted with breaking laws, and used their knowledge to quench America’s voracious thirst for hooch.
We’ve written about many whiskey crimes over the years, which range from spectacular heists to elaborate counterfeit operations. The following seven whiskey crimes are so cinematic they could be featured in film — and at least one of them already has.
The 7 Wildest Whiskey Crimes
7. Casey Alexander — A Boozy Con Man
(Photo: Uwe Anspach/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)
Casey Alexander is a British con artist who defrauded 150 elderly people out of $13 million through a fake wine and whiskey scam.
Like a lot of scammers, he preyed on the vulnerable population of elderly individuals with promises of wealth and an opportunity to enter the “glamorous and lucrative” scotch whisky investment market.
Alexander set up three fictitious wine and whisky investment companies: Windsor Jones, Charles Winn and Vintage Whisky Casks, according to Decanter.
These companies were described by victims as using “aggressive” tactics, fake names and fake British accents when cold-calling elderly victims and urging them to empty their pockets. With empty promises of doubled investments and invitations to high-end parties, Alexander’s sham companies managed to collect a hefty sum from the duped “investors.”
Alexander was arrested in June 2022 after FBI agents discovered the scam. An 89-year-old Ohio man reported losses of a whopping $300,000 due to Alexander’s scheme.
In an elaborate sting operation, FBI agents gleaned information from a source within the fake companies. They were able to identify potential victims who sent checks to Alexander and warn them to cancel them before they were cashed, saving them from losses of $466,000.
Alexander was sentenced in April 2023 and currently faces 20 years of jail time and a fine of up to $250,000.
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6. A Counterfeit Sazerac Operation With Bottles Purchased From… Etsy?
(Photo: Sazerac)
Perhaps one of the more intricate counterfeit booze operations involved a liquor distributor named Allocated. The company found itself in the middle of a lawsuit from Sazerac after it sold mini “gift sets” of Weller bourbon. The cute little sets featured adorable baby bottles of the brand’s highly coveted Weller Bourbon.
As fun as the idea of mini Weller bottles might seem, there was one major issue with that. Sazerac claims it never made miniature bottles of Weller Bourbon. The mini Wellers appeared to be counterfeit, and those little bottles were purchased from Etsy.
Although no one went to jail, Sazerac ended up suing Allocated and winning $30,000 in damages. The liquor distributor ended up removing the listing for these counterfeit mini Weller bottles and discarding whatever sets were left in stock.
Yet one mystery remains — what was the juice inside?
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5. The Infamous Pappygate and the tale of the ‘Bourbon King’
(AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more high-profile whiskey-related crime than Pappygate. In June 2021, Netflix released a docu-series chronicling a moment in 2013 when 18 barrels of bourbon and almost 300 bottles of the highly coveted Pappy Van Winkle bourbon went missing from the storied Buffalo Trace Distillery.
The man who was prosecuted for the scheme was none other than Gilbert ‘Toby” Curtsinger, otherwise known as “The Bourbon King,” because law enforcement thought such an operation was helmed by some sort of organized crime-like “kingpin.”
Curtsinger was an employee of the distillery who claimed to have been paid $15-$16 an hour. Through his work at Buffalo Trace, Curtsinger had access to rare bourbons like Pappy Van Winkle and George T. Stagg.
He developed the reputation of being a bit of a fixer in local Kentucky circles; if you wanted a bottle of rare bourbon, he could figure out a way to get it for you. It turned out that as a bourbon flipper, Curtsinger could make some serious cash as part of the “perks” of working in the business.
Besides working in the bourbon biz, Curtsinger was an avid softball player and would often conduct his side hustle on the diamond. Eventually, he was arrested in 2015, and Buffalo Trace claimed losses of 65 cases of Rip Van Winkle and Pappy whiskeys due to Curtsinger allegedly flipping these pricey bottles and making a profit.
Pappy’s popularity was beginning to gain quite a bit of traction at the time, and those pilfered bottles fetched a pretty penny. Since the release of the docu-series, the mystique of Pappy has only increased.
Curtsinger was sentenced to 15 years in prison, according to the State Journal, but was released after 30 days due to shock probation since he was a first-time felony offender.
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4. An Expensive Heist in Paris
(Photo: David Cheskin/PA via AP)
In November 2017, one of the most elaborate whisky heists took place in Paris, of all places. Now, we know what you’re thinking — Paris is a city where wine is the drink of choice, right? So, it would be fair to assume the country is known for elaborate wine heists. While this is true, the French capital was also home to an interesting whisky heist.
In 2017, thieves broke into La Maison du Whisky, one of Paris’ oldest whisky shops, and stole 69 bottles of Japanese whisky worth a whopping total of €673,000 ($730,800), according to The Daily Beast.
It turns out the thieves took bottles of Karuizawa 1960, a whisky nicknamed “The Squirrel” that is whisky is so rare it’s considered priceless and the oldest Japanese single malt ever bottled. The Daily Beast’s Tokyo correspondent, Jake Adelstein — the journalist on whom the show Tokyo Vice was based — reported the distillery closed in November 2011 right before Japanese whisky blew up.
After the theft, the Daily Beast reported that the Parisian luxury whisky shop shared fliers depicting the missing Karuizawa 1960 bottle, “as if it were a missing person or a stolen masterpiece.”
The fact that the thieves were able to break into the shop undisturbed is particularly shocking, since the neighborhood it’s situated in is quiet, and the shop is across from the British Embassy, which is often guarded by armed officers, according to Whisky Cast.
The thieves were never caught.
3. A Forklift Driver’s Eye-Watering $4.3 Million Jack Daniel’s theft
(AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File)
Between July and November 2019, approximately 123,000 bottles of imported Jack Daniel’s Whiskey were stolen from a warehouse.
The value of the damages amounted to losses of $4.35 million. The fact that such an exorbitant amount of bottles went missing without anybody noticing only meant one thing: it was an inside job.
In June 2023, authorities apprehended one of the alleged perpetrators of the crime, a forklift driver named James Barr. Barr worked for a bonded warehouse company that stored imported goods called Richard Johnson, according to Eastern Daily Press.
Barr was caught on CCTV footage driving the vehicles full of Jack Daniel’s out of the warehouse — but avoiding the bridge on a route where drivers were required to show documentation, according to The Drinks Business. The day after he was caught, he quit. It took a year for the authorities to arrest him.
Police claimed Barr was paid off in cash and deposited it at ATMs to pay for a lavish lifestyle that included “expensive cars,” according to Eastern Daily Press.
Though his attorneys claimed Barr was simply a driver and that people operated above him, he faced a sentence of three years in jail. The other individuals involved in the Jack Daniel’s theft have yet to be identified.
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2. The Bimber Boss — How the Founder of a Culty Whisky Brand Led a Shocking Double Life
(Photo: Bimber)
Bimber was known for its reputation as an up-and-coming, hipster craft whisky brand, and the London-based brand experienced quite a bit of growth amongst craft liquor enthusiasts. Yet, in February, news broke out that the founder of Bimber, Dariusz Plazewski, was facing extradition to Poland over conspiracy to murder charges.
It turned out his real name was Lucas Ratajewski, and he allegedly fled Poland and lived under a false identity for two decades while building up the company, and no one knew about his checkered past.
Although his lawyers tried to get him released on bail, they were denied when authorities labeled Ratajewski as a potential “flight risk.” Some of the charges the Bimber Boss faces include conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to supply cannabis, LSD and heroin. The whisky boss was also accused of supplying an AK-47 rifle to function as the murder weapon. The murder was never carried out, but the charges against Ratajewski remained.
Despite allegations against Ratajewski of his colorful life, it appears he squared up when he moved to the United Kingdom and founded Bimber Distillery. The distillery produces approximately 50,000 bottles a year and made media headlines for a charity initiative when a bottle from the distillery made it to the top of Mount Lhotse in Nepal. The Bimber Boss was also in the process of building out another distillery called Dunphail Distilleries.
Ratajewski claimed he had to flee Poland and adopt an alias because he was in deep with “violent criminals.” He has been in police custody since December, and it is up to the courts to decide whether he will be extradited to Poland to stand trial.
He stepped down from his position a week after the news made media headlines.
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1. A Whiskey-Soaked Assassination Attempt in Russia
(Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via AP)
In October, a Ukrainian assassin attempted to kill 77 Russian pilots during a graduation ceremony at a prestigious military flight school in theatrical fashion — with a giant, cake and cases of Jameson Irish whiskey, all of which were laced with a deadly ingredient. The targets held high rankings within the Russian military.
Ultimately, the assassination attempt was unsuccessful, and Russian authorities captured the would-be assassin, an individual law enforcement authorities identified as E. Semenov.
The country used its databases and security footage to track down Semenov. When he was captured by Russian police “he immediately told everything,” according to the Russian media.
Semenov allegedly procured the cake through a bakery within the country’s Krasnodar region. Metro UK reported that the pilots cut the cake but did not eat it “by pure chance.” Apparently, the officers were so busy at the celebration, that they weren’t able to enjoy the sweet and poisonous treat or the deadly Irish whiskey.
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