Food Network star and longtime Sonoma County resident Guy Fieri said the 2024 heist of $1 million of his company’s tequila “hurt bad.”
The celebrity chef recounted the devastating incident in an interview with “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi for a segment of the CBS News program which aired Sunday.
In November 2024, two truckloads of Santo Tequila – the brand founded in 2019 by Fieri and former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar – went missing sometime after the shipment crossed the border from Mexico into Laredo, Texas.
All told, some 24,000 bottles of the tequila vanished, the company’s President and CEO Dan Butkus told The Press Democrat last year.
Bound for Santo Tequila’s Pennsylvania distribution center, the trucks were instead diverted by thieves who posed as a trucking company.
“Oh, it hurt. It hurt bad,” Fieri told Alfonsi about the heist.
Fieri gave Alfonsi the rundown of events in the segment, saying his mind went to “Goodfellas” when he heard the news from Butkus.
“I’m like, it — it’s not a needle in a haystack. I mean, this is a semi-tractor truck,” Fieri said on the program. “My mind is swimming in exactly how do you lose, you know, that many thousands of bottles of tequila?”
What happened was a case of “double brokering,” in which the company that handles shipping for Santo hired a trucking company. That trucking company outsourced the job to two other companies. It turns out, “60 Minutes” reported, those companies were fake — with phony letterheads, email addresses and phone numbers to appear legitimate.
The ruse also included manipulated GPS data that made it appear the trucks were delayed but still headed to Pennsylvania.
Instead, the shipment of more than 4,000 cases of the company’s stock, including 2,000 cases each of the blanco and reposado tequila, and 40 cases of a three-year aged Extra Anejo Single Barrel, was diverted to Los Angeles, where investigators found 11,000 bottles in a warehouse a month later.
Fieri told “60 Minutes” that the thieves and the second truck of tequila were never found.
The program also talked to Keith Lewis, who runs operations for Verisk CargoNet, a company hired by Santo that works with law enforcement to solve these kinds of crimes.
According to Lewis, cases like this happen several times a day.
In the case of the missing Santo Tequila, Lewis told “60 Minutes” that the criminals created fake online profiles of trucking companies, bid on jobs they suspected might be valuable and hired unsuspecting drivers online.
“The driver that picked it up has no idea that he’s committing a crime,” Lewis said.
The program also traveled to Los Angeles, where the city’s police department gave Alfonsi a tour of a warehouse filled with stolen shipments that have been recovered by the Los Angeles Police Department’s cargo theft unit.
The LAPD told the program stolen shipments are typically sold online or in stores to unsuspecting customers.
While Santo was able to put some of the recovered stock back of the shelf, Fieri told “60 Minutes” the whole ordeal, which came weeks before the holiday season “hurt all around.”
“You know here we are, we’re coming right into the fourth quarter. We lose all the tequila. We can’t fill the shelves. We had to lay off players. You know, and that’s the hardest thing? Knowing how many people are counting on you.”
In an email to The Press Democrat Tuesday, Butkus said the company was “disheartened to learn of the magnitude and scope of cyber-cargo crime and its devastating effects on small businesses across the country.”
“Santo has taken significant measures to lower the chances of this happening again. We encourage others to do the same. Hopefully, our coming forward to discuss the story publicly will help lead to better prevention and fewer losses,” Butkus said.