Four men arrested after theft of $500k worth of Tequila

Four men have been arrested in Florida after a trailer containing over US$500,000 worth of Patrón Tequila was detached from a transportation lorry and driven away.

According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the theft took place on Sunday (30 December) evening with the disappearance of a trailer containing 996 cases of Tequila.

The lorry driver had stopped for a break in Tampa and when he returned to his vehicle, he discovered that the trailer was missing.

The police later intercepted the men at 12:30 am on 31 December, around 11 miles, in the process of loading cases of Tequila into a box truck registered in their name.

The men, named by police as Vidal Estrada, Lemuel Escobar, Humberto Ramirez and Alberto Obaya, have been charged with burglary, grand theft and resisting an officer without violence.

The Tequila that was taken was estimated to have a retail value of around $507,105 (£403,341), according to police. 

Danny Alvarez, a spokesperson for Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, commented: “We do know it was organised, and this had been planned because the box truck was there to meet them.

“Since it was right there near the highway, that truck could have easily gotten on the highway and headed north, south, east, or west and would have been out of our county in no amount of time”.