A man in the Flemish municipality of Heusden-Zolder, in the province of Limburg, has made off with two bottles of whiskey worth €4,000 each in a brazen daylight robbery, Het Laatste Nieuws reports. Easy to snatch and worth a fortune online, this type of loot is increasingly attractive to criminals.
In a post on Facebook, the Drankenshop Brokemans posted pictures of the theft with the humorous caption “Pappy Van Winkle (a brand of whiskey) is HOT!” In the footage, recorded on 7 March, a thief picks out two bottles from the top shelf, aged 15 and 20 years, with a combined retail value of €8,000, the shop reported. The suspect then conveniently forgets to pay for the items, hiding the two expensive bottles away within his coat.
“Of course, we are confident that this was a woeful mistake. After all, it is easily forgotten to bring them to the check out when you have already tucked them away into your coat,” the message on social media read. “We would therefore like to invite the man to come and correct this misunderstanding.”
This brazen theft is actually part of a largely trend across Flanders. In a comment to HLN, local shopkeepers said that thieves had repeatedly targeted their liquor cabinets, stealing bottles of up to €650 on several occasions. These bottles often end up for sale online.
Pappy Van Winkle, one of America's priciest whiskeys, is specifically targeted by thieves. Several years ago, thieves made off with several cases of the whiskey, worth €100,000. A similar robbery occurred in Paris in 2017, when robbers targeted the Maison du Whiskey , fleeing with 69 bottles worth €673,000.
In November, a Spanish court sentenced a convicted Dutch-Romanian national for stealing a €5,350 bottle of Balvenie whiskey from a high-end Madrid restaurant.
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Alcohol theft was clearly a career for this individual, who had previously been convicted for stealing a €12,000 bottle of Burgundy wine from Geneva Airport and 45 bottles of 1806 Château d'Yquem, worth €300,000, from a two Michelen star restaurant in the Spanish capital.
Belgium is also targeted by professional liquor bandits. In 2022, a Bruges court convicted two Russians for stealing 114 bottles of whiskey, with some costing up to €3,000, from 49 Colruyt supermarkets across Flanders. Again, this time in Leuven, a suspect was convicted for 23 thefts from Colruyt, bagging a total of 63 whiskey bottles.
Shopkeeper's advice? Keep bottles in stores locked up behind cabinets, preferably locked with a key, and keep an eye out for the opportunistic customer.
