Guy Fieri was the victim of an elaborate scheme last year where two semi-trucks containing more than $1 million worth of Santo Tequila, which he co-founded with former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar, disappeared on their way to the brand's warehouse in Texas.
In an interview with 60 Minutes, Fieri admitted the unexpected heist of 24,000 bottles of tequila resulted in layoffs. "It hurt. It hurt bad," he said. "Here we are, coming right into the fourth quarter, we lose all the tequila. We can't fill the shelves. We had to lay off players, and that's the hardest thing."
To make matters worse, the semi-trucks were carrying a limited-edition tequila known as Extra Añejo Single Barrel that took over three years to create, and could require up to two years to replenish.
Fieri recalled receiving a call from Dan Butkus, president of Santo Spirits, informing him that two truckloads of tequila were "lost."
"Wait, wait, wait. Is this a hijacking?" the Food Network star asked. "Are the drivers okay? My mind is swimming in exactly how do you lose, you know, that many thousands of bottles of tequila."
After the Santo Tequila is bottled in Mexico, the shipment goes through customs before ending up in Laredo, Texas. The brand uses a logistics company to connect with trucking companies that can ship the product from there. According to 60 Minutes, when the trucks went missing, the trucking company had outsourced the job to two other trucking companies that turned out to be fake.
These fake companies managed to deceive everyone with bogus letterheads, email addresses, and phone numbers. The practice of one trucking company outsourcing to another is known as "double brokering," and it is quite common.
Those behind the theft were able to buy more time by sending emails claiming the trucks encountered a series of mechanical issues, while also providing fake GPS tracking updates that made it appear that the shipment was headed toward its intended location.
Keith Lewis, a former cop who runs CargoNet, which specializes in crimes such as this one, discovered that the drivers were redirected from the Santo Spirits in Pennsylvania to Los Angeles by those running the scam. With the help of the LAPD Cargo Theft Unit, one of the drivers was found and questioned about where the shipment was actually sent.
The information led investigators to a warehouse in southeast Los Angeles where 11,000 bottles were found.