Three men guilty in maple syrup theft
• They styled themselves as free- market warriors, but a jury decided Saturday that three men who worked to drain $18.7-million worth of maple syrup from a provincial warehouse are common criminals.
After two days of deliberations at the courthouse in Trois- Rivières, Que., the jury delivered guilty verdicts against one of the ringleaders and two accomplices in the first case to come to trial following the theft.
Richard Vallières, 38, was found guilty of theft, fraud and traffic of stolen syrup. Étienne St-Pierre, 73, was convicted of fraud and trafficking, and Raymond Vallières, Richard’s 62-year-old father, was convicted of possession of stolen syrup. A fourth accused, Jean Lord, was acquitted on a possession charge.
The trial heard that over a 12-month period in 2011 and 2012, nearly 3,000 tonnes of syrup disappeared from a warehouse used by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers. In dollar terms, it was “the largest theft investigated by the Sûreté du Québec in its history,” Crown prosecutor Julien Beauchamp-Laliberté said.
The theft and fraud were committed against the provincial federation, which acts as a marketing board. The stolen syrup was pumped into a black market that undermines the quotas and prices established by the federation, the prosecutor said.
During the fall of 2011, a tractor- trailer began appearing at a f ederation warehouse in Saint- Louisde-Blandford, Que. and loading barrels filled with syrup from that spring’s harvest. The barrels were transported to a sugar shack belonging to Raymond Vallières, where they were emptied and replaced with stream water.
When the stream froze over, the syrup-transfer operation moved to a warehouse in Montreal in early 2012.
Finally, the prosecutor said, the thieves drained the barrels directly at the federation warehouse.
In total, 9,571 barrels were emptied, representing more than half the stockpile the federation keeps to maintain a stable price.
It wasn’t until August 2012 that federation staff grew suspicious when they noticed some barrels sounded emptier than others.
The theft made i nternational headlines, but the trial heard the valuable stockpile was protected with minimal security. There were no security cameras or guards,” one of the co-owners testified.
The crime occurred amid a long- running dispute between the federation and rogue syrup producers and buyers who don’t want to be limited by the quota system.
Sébastien Jutras, a trucker who served eight months in prison after pleading guilty to his involvement in the plot, testified that after one syrup delivery, Raymond Vallières offered his opinion of the federation and the syrup being drained from its reserves: “Stealing from thieves is not stealing,” he said.
In a 2014 police interview played for the jurors, Richard Vallières said he had been buying and selling on Quebec’s maple syrup black market for 10 years and had previous run-ins with the federation.
“They were after me because I buy a lot. … They want more control over the syrup,” he said.
The trial heard that as much as $ 200,000 in cash changed hands for a single syrup transaction, and the players used burner phones to avoid detection.
Richard Vallières’ defence was he committed the theft under duress. He testified that when he realized the syrup he was buying came from the federation warehouse, he tried to back out. But the seller, who cannot be identified because he faces a jury trial in January, threatened him at gunpoint. Vallières said his wife and young daughter were also threatened.
But other evidence suggested Vallières was not too troubled. The jury heard of friendly text messages between him and the supposedly menacing seller. When the theft was uncovered and splashed across the news, Vallières’ response was, “The party’s over,” the jury heard.
Richard Vallières was ordered detained immediately, while the other two remain free until sentencing. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 27.