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In a scene that would have been ripped from a Hollywood heist film, a discerning thief with a nostril for positive wine reduce a gap above the wine cellar of an unique Venice, California wine retailer, dropped down into the darkish room, and stole 800 bottles of wine valued at $600,000.
“It was like one thing out of ‘Ocean’s Eleven.’ We simply could not consider it,” Nick Martinelle, the shop supervisor of Lincoln High-quality Wines, informed CNN.
Now Los Angeles police are searching for the Burgundy burglar who they are saying labored with at the very least one different confederate.
“We suspect there could also be an individual that’s getting the wine handed all the way down to them off the rooftop and presumably a getaway driver,” Los Angeles Police Division Det. Joel Twycross informed the Los Angeles Occasions. “It’s evident that this was deliberate for some time, and a number of effort was put into mapping out tips on how to evade getting caught.”
Photograph courtesy of Tristar Investigation
Not a job for amateurs
Investigators consider whoever dedicated this crime knew what they have been searching for and deliberate it out prematurely.
Grainy surveillance video captured a person wearing all black sporting a red-billed baseball cap stealing the booty. He seems to be taking directions from somebody on a cellphone. The theft took about 3 1/2 hours because the burglar methodically went by way of every bottle of wine to decide on solely the very best classic.
In accordance with the Los Angeles Occasions, the stolen objects included about 75 bottles that retailed for over $1,000. Some scorching ticket objects embody a bottle of Billecart-Salmon Brut Reserve Champagne in an uncommonly giant, 15-liter format often known as a Nebuchadnezzar.
“That is a rare record,” wine advisor Melissa Smith informed the Occasions. “A whole lot of them are issues collectors would need of their possession.”
The shop’s proprietor agrees. Nazmul Haque Helal, who has owned Lincoln’s High-quality Wines for years, informed the Occasions that the robber handed over some California wines to focus on just a few French rarities from the Bordeaux and Burgundy areas.
“It is rather onerous for me to digest. All my onerous work snatched inside a pair hours,” Haque Helal informed CNN.
Associated: An Iconic New York Metropolis Wine Retailer Is Dealing with a Prison Investigation
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