TRUCKLOAD OF TROUBLE!
Gang busted with $500G of hijacked Patron tequila
FOUR bumbling crooks were nabbed with nearly a thousand cases of stolen tequila after their half-million dollar heist failed to go down smoothly, say Florida cops.
A trucker hauling a fully loaded semi stopped for a meal late last month. But after he left the Tampa area restaurant, the driver discovered his tequilaladen trailer had been detached from his big rig and towed away!
He immediately alerted local deputies, who searched the area. Ninety minutes later — and 11 miles from the truck stop — investigators say they spotted a gang of four guys unloading cases of the pilfered Patron from the missing 53-foot trailer and moving the burgled booze into a box truck!
By the time police arrived at the scene, the men had only transferred about 20 of the 996 boxes of the hootch, which were valued at more than $500,000.
Vidal Estrada, 66, Humberto Ramirez, 37, and Alberto Obaya, 46, were arrested on the spot, while 35-year-old Lemuel Escobar tried to make a run for it — but was apprehended less than 100 yards from the scene.
The crew have been charged with grand theft, resisting arrest and swiping an unoccupied conveyance. But excon Obaya, who has a lengthy rap sheet for assault, burglary and other crimes, was also slapped with an additional charge for possession of a controlled substance.
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Danny Alvarez says of the hamfisted heist, “We do know it was organized, and this had been planned because the box truck was there to meet them.”