At Least Thieves Who Boosted $648,000 Worth Of Wine Kept It At The Right Temperature

Every time we hear about a heist, images of thieves decked head to toe in black, spiraling down from special spy ropes hanging from the ceiling and saws cutting through safe walls inevitably dance through the air. And in the case of $648,000 worth of pilfered wine found in a temperature controlled environment, it certainly sounds like the suspects were following a very precise plan.

Seattle police have recovered a “substantial” amount of the 200 cases of wine stolen on Thanksgiving Day from a wine storage business, reports the Seattle Times. The details of the operation bring to mind any classic movie heist:

The two men are accused of disabling motion detectors, spray-painting over surveillance cameras, sawing through plasterboard to access vintages in private storage lockers, charges say. They are also accused of tampering with gas lines that could have caused a big explosion had the gas reached an open flame, charging papers say.

Turns out one of the cameras wasn’t painted over completely, allowing employees to identify one suspect who had used his own name and address on forms to rent a wine-storage unit.

The cache of booze was discovered in a building less than a mile away from the scene of the crime, and cops say it seems the thieves had some care for their precious loot: It appears the wine had been kept in a “temperature controlled environment.”

That’s a good way to protect your ill-gotten investment from getting damaged, especially as weather in Seattle has been subfreezing lately.

The tough part now will be figuring out which customers of the wine storage business had bottles stolen in order to return their property, say cops.

“Detectives need to photograph and document each bottle, enter it into evidence, and then we need to find the owner of each bottle,” an investigator said.

Police recover wine from Thanksgiving Day heist [Seattle Times]

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