Aprendos Podcast
← All episodesBack to Aprendos

Level B1

The Thieves Who Stole $18 Million of Maple Syrup

How Quebec's Syrup Slowly Turned into Water

In 2012, thieves took thousands of barrels of maple syrup from a warehouse in Quebec and put water in their place. Olivia tells Sean how they did it and how they got caught.

↓ Download the printable PDF

Key words

These words appear in the episode. In the transcript, hover over or tap a highlighted word to see what it means.

heistnoun
A big, planned robbery of something very valuable.
The film is about a group of old friends who plan a heist at a casino.
barrelnoun
A big round container for liquids like oil, wine or syrup.
The farmer collects rainwater in a blue barrel behind the house.
noticeverb
To see or hear something and become aware of it.
Did you notice that the café has new chairs?
warehousenoun
A very large building where companies keep goods before they sell them.
My brother works nights in a warehouse, packing boxes for an online shop.
temporaryadjective
Only for a short time, not forever.
While they fix the bridge, there's a temporary bus stop on the other side.
patientadjective
Able to wait calmly for a long time without getting angry.
Be patient with the new waiter. It's only his second day.
lazyadjective
Not wanting to work or make an effort.
I felt lazy on Sunday, so I stayed on the sofa all afternoon.
bordernoun
The line between two countries.
We showed our passports at the border and drove into France.
arrestverb
When the police take someone away because they think the person broke the law.
The police arrested two men for selling fake concert tickets.
ringleadernoun
The person who leads a group that does something wrong.
The teacher knew who the ringleader was the moment the class started laughing.
trialnoun
The time when a court listens to the facts and decides if someone broke the law.
The trial lasted three weeks, and the newspapers wrote about it every day.
sympathynoun
The feeling that you understand someone's problems and feel sorry for them.
I have a lot of sympathy for people who work on Christmas Day.
profitnoun
The money you keep after you pay all your costs.
The lemonade stand made a profit of ten dollars on Saturday.
guiltyadjective
When a court decides that someone did a crime.
The jury found the driver guilty of driving too fast.

Did you understand?

Choose the correct answer.

1. What was the first clue that something was wrong?

2. Why did the federation rent the extra warehouse?

3. At first, what did the thieves put in the old barrels?

4. Where did the police find more than six hundred barrels in October 2012?

5. What did the Supreme Court of Canada decide in 2022?

Exercise 1

Who said it?

Complete the quote with a key word. Then guess who said it.

1. “There's a big there, close to the highway.”

Who said it?

2. “That's how a movie does it. These guys were much more .”

Who said it?

3. “Criminals always get .”

Who said it?

4. “The , so the boss of the whole group.”

Who said it?

5. “You know, I have a tiny bit of there.”

Who said it?

Exercise 2

Crossword

All the answers are key words from the episode.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Across

  1. 2 At this event in court, a truck driver talked about a shoebox of cash. (5)
  2. 6 The syrup waited here, with no cameras and no alarms. (9)
  3. 7 Vallières said he kept about one million dollars of this. (6)
  4. 8 In 2016, the court said Vallières was this. (6)

Down

  1. 1 One of these weighs about six hundred pounds when it's full of syrup. (6)
  2. 3 A robbery so big that people make films about it. (5)
  3. 4 The thieves were this: they took only a few barrels at a time. (7)
  4. 5 Some syrup crossed this line into Vermont. (6)
  5. 9 After a while, the thieves stopped filling the barrels with water. They got... (4)

Exercise 3

Your turn

You are in charge of the syrup warehouse in 2012. How do you protect the barrels? Write three or four sentences. Use at least two words from the list.

Your text is saved on this device.

First, I would never use a temporary warehouse without cameras. I would count the barrels every month, and I would open a few of them, too. That way I would notice an empty barrel quickly. Thieves get lazy, but good guards don't.

Full transcript

Show the transcript
Olivia
So the accountant climbs up onto the to count them. They're stacked six high, and each one weighs about six hundred pounds.
Sean
Fun day at the office.
Olivia
He steps onto one barrel, and it moves under his foot. It nearly tips over…
Sean
…hold on. Six hundred pounds of anything doesn't just move.
Olivia
Unless it's empty. And that was the first clue in the great Canadian maple syrup .
Sean
Wait. Somebody robbed Canada of its syrup?
Olivia
Thousands of barrels of it. And for months, nobody a thing.
Sean
This is Aprendos English, level B1. I'm Sean.
Olivia
And I'm Olivia.
Sean
Before you go on, I need to confess something. I'm not sure I've ever had real maple syrup.
Olivia
Excuse me?
Sean
At home we put golden syrup on pancakes. It comes in a green and gold tin. Lovely stuff.
Olivia
Sean, that's just sugar in a tin.
Sean
It's a British tradition, thank you.
Olivia
Well, by the end of this story, you'll understand why people steal the real thing.
Sean
We'll see. And if you're new here, subscribe. There's a strange true story in every episode.
Olivia
Okay. Quebec, in the summer of 2012. We're in a small town called Saint-Louis-de-Blandford.
Sean
You said that very nicely.
Olivia
I practised all morning. There's a big there, close to the highway.
Sean
A warehouse, so a huge building where you store things.
Olivia
Yes. And inside, there are about sixteen thousand metal barrels of maple syrup.
Sean
Whose syrup?
Olivia
It belongs to the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers.
Sean
So all the syrup farmers together, in one big group.
Olivia
Thousands of farmers, yes. And the warehouse is part of something called the strategic reserve.
Sean
Why would farmers need a warehouse full of syrup? For pancake emergencies?
Olivia
You're closer than you think.
Sean
Really?
Olivia
Some years the weather is bad, and the trees give very little. In 2008 the reserve was completely empty after a few bad years.
Sean
So now they keep some syrup back in the good years…
Olivia
…and they sell it in the bad years. That's the reserve.
Sean
Okay, I actually know a bit about this federation. Some newspapers call it the OPEC of maple syrup.
Olivia
Like the oil countries?
Sean
The same idea. Since 2002 it has worked like a legal cartel.
Olivia
A cartel, so a group that controls the price together? Sounds a bit dramatic for pancakes.
Sean
It decides how much each farm can sell, and it sets the price.
Olivia
Can they do that?
Sean
In Quebec, yes, it's the law. And Quebec makes around three quarters of the world's maple syrup.
Olivia
So whoever controls Quebec…
Sean
…controls the breakfast of the whole planet. Pretty much.
Olivia
Remember that, because some farmers really hated this system.
Sean
And do you know what one barrel was worth back then?
Olivia
No idea. A few hundred dollars?
Sean
About eighteen hundred dollars. One business magazine said that was around thirteen times the price of crude oil.
Olivia
Thirteen times? Okay, now I want to be a thief.
Sean
Please don't. Who was guarding all this liquid gold?
Olivia
That's the funny part. In 2011 the farmers made so much syrup that the main buildings were full. So the federation rented an extra warehouse.
Sean
The one in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford.
Olivia
That one. It was only , so there were no cameras and no alarms.
Sean
Oh no.
Olivia
And somebody counted the barrels only once a year.
Sean
I check my milk more often.
Olivia
Now, the building had a private owner. And the owner was the wife of…
Sean
…let me guess. Somebody on the inside.
Olivia
The wife of Avik Caron. According to the court, he was the man on the inside. And another company rented part of the same building.
Sean
So the thieves had keys.
Olivia
Keys and a good excuse.
Sean
Right then. One dark night, a big truck arrives, and they take everything at once…
Olivia
…no. That's how a movie does it. These guys were much more .
Sean
Go on.
Olivia
They took a few barrels at a time. They drove them to a sugar shack far away from town.
Sean
A sugar shack, the little wooden cabin in the woods where they boil the sap?
Olivia
Right, the place where syrup is usually made. There they siphoned the syrup out of the barrels.
Sean
Siphoned, so they sucked it out with a tube.
Olivia
Into their own barrels, yes. And then they filled the old barrels with water and drove them back.
Sean
Water! That's brilliant. And a bit evil.
Olivia
The barrels looked the same, and they weighed almost the same. Nobody opened them.
Sean
But your accountant's barrel was empty. No water at all?
Olivia
Good question. After a while, the thieves stopped bringing barrels out. They emptied them right there in the warehouse…
Sean
…and stopped filling them with water.
Olivia
They got , yes.
Sean
Criminals always get lazy.
Olivia
I know about counting syrup, by the way. In college I had a summer job at a pancake place in Seattle. Every night we counted the syrup bottles, and one night we were short by twelve.
Sean
Twelve bottles. Who took them?
Olivia
The cook. He was making syrup cocktails.
Sean
So you've solved a syrup crime.
Olivia
A much smaller one. Okay, question for everyone listening. If you were the accountant, would you climb those barrels or just count them from the floor? Tell us in the comments.
Sean
From the floor. Definitely from the floor.
Olivia
Lucky for the farmers, Michel Gauvreau climbed. That was the accountant's name. In July 2012 he came to do the yearly count.
Sean
And the barrel moved.
Olivia
And then the next one moved too. Some barrels were completely empty. Others were full of water.
Sean
How much was missing? A few hundred…
Olivia
…more than nine and a half thousand.
Sean
Nine and a half thousand?
Olivia
About six million pounds of syrup. It was worth around eighteen point seven million Canadian dollars.
Sean
That's a lot of pancakes. Hang on, why didn't someone notice the trucks?
Olivia
Trucks with barrels are normal there. Every syrup farm in Quebec has trucks with barrels.
Sean
So the thieves were hiding in plain sight.
Olivia
Exactly. Then the Quebec police got involved, and they started to follow the syrup.
Sean
Follow it where? You can't exactly put a name on syrup.
Olivia
The thieves sold it in small amounts to normal companies. A lot of it went by truck to New Brunswick, the next province. Some went across the to Vermont.
Sean
Clever. Small sales don't look strange.
Olivia
And in October 2012 the police found more than six hundred barrels at a buyer in New Brunswick. In a town called Kedgwick.
Sean
So they found it. Great, case closed…
Olivia
…not even close. That was only a small part of the syrup.
Sean
How much came back?
Olivia
Honestly, nobody gives a clear number. One magazine said about two thirds. Other reports only talk about those few hundred barrels.
Sean
Hmm... So some of it is probably on someone's breakfast table.
Olivia
Or it was eaten years ago. Then in December 2012, the police more than fifteen people.
Sean
Fifteen! For syrup.
Olivia
For a lot of syrup. And there was a boss. His name was Richard Vallières, and he was in his early thirties.
Sean
Was he a syrup farmer?
Olivia
Not really. He bought and sold syrup outside the federation's rules. They call him the .
Sean
The ringleader, so the boss of the whole group.
Olivia
Yes. And his father, Raymond, was arrested too.
Sean
A family business, then.
Olivia
Sadly, yes. Now, I have to be fair to you, Sean. You were right about something earlier.
Sean
I'm always right. Which part?
Olivia
The cartel part. At the , a truck driver remembered something one of the Vallières men said.
Sean
Let me guess. He called them thieves.
Olivia
He said stealing from thieves is not stealing. The reports don't agree if it was the father or the son.
Sean
You know, I have a tiny bit of there. When I worked in Brussels, farmers drove their tractors into the city. They were protesting about milk quotas. Farmers really hate being told how much they can sell.
Olivia
I'm going to stop you there. This was not a protest.
Sean
I'm not saying it was a protest…
Olivia
…because who do you think owned that syrup? Thousands of normal farmers. And they only get paid when their syrup is sold.
Sean
Okay, fair point.
Olivia
The federation said the syrup was insured. Still, it was the farmers' syrup.
Sean
Fine. My sympathy just got smaller.
Olivia
Good. And the money was huge. Vallières told the court he sold the syrup for about ten million dollars.
Sean
Ten million. He must be rich, then…
Olivia
…he said he only kept about one million as . The rest went to other people in the chain.
Sean
And how do you even pay for stolen syrup? You can't use a bank.
Olivia
You'll like this. The truck driver said that once he picked up a shoebox full of cash.
Sean
A shoebox.
Olivia
He thought it had to be about two hundred thousand dollars.
Sean
Very expensive shoes.
Olivia
And Vallières had a story for the court too. He said a dangerous man forced him to take the syrup. He said the man had a gun.
Sean
Did the court believe him?
Olivia
No. Not for a second.
Sean
And what about the buyer in New Brunswick? He must have known something.
Olivia
He argued that you can't prove which tree syrup comes from.
Sean
That's actually a good line.
Olivia
It didn't work. In November 2016, a court found Richard Vallières , together with his father and that buyer.
Sean
So what did he get? A few months?
Olivia
Eight years in prison.
Sean
Eight years! I thought maybe a big fine.
Olivia
Oh, he got a fine as well. In 2017 the judge fined him more than nine million dollars.
Sean
A fine, so money he has to pay the court.
Olivia
Yes, on top of the prison time. And if he didn't pay, he could spend more years in prison.
Sean
What about Mister Caron, the man on the inside?
Olivia
Five years in prison, and a fine of one point two million.
Sean
So everyone got punished.
Olivia
Most of them did. And the federation's main warehouse, in Laurierville, has security like a bank.
Sean
Cameras, alarms, the lot?
Olivia
Cameras everywhere, and the alarm goes off if anyone comes in after work hours. Even the staff.
Sean
Didn't they make a TV show about all this? I'm sure I saw an advert.
Olivia
The Sticky. It came out on Prime Video in 2024, with Margo Martindale.
Sean
Is it the true story?
Olivia
No. The trailer even says it's absolutely not the true story.
Sean
I respect that.
Olivia
So, Sean. Do you understand now why people steal real maple syrup?
Sean
I understand that it's worth more than oil. But I'm still loyal to my tin.
Olivia
You're going to try real syrup, and you're going to say sorry.
Sean
We'll see. So, everyone, what would you do with thousands of barrels of stolen syrup and nowhere to sell it? Tell us in the comments.
Olivia
Wait, I saved one last thing. In 2020 an appeal court cut his fine. From nine million to about one million.
Sean
So he won in the end.
Olivia
Not quite. In 2022 the Supreme Court of Canada put the nine million back. He has ten years to pay, or he goes back to prison for six more years.
Sean
Ten years after the theft, and the syrup still followed him. Sticky.
Olivia
The free PDF with the whole conversation and the key words is linked in the description.
Sean
And subscribe, because next time at this level it's the box that helped save Apollo 13.
Olivia
Bye, everyone. Sean, I'm sending you a bottle of real syrup.
Sean
Leave it on the shelf next to my green and gold tin. Cheers.

Want more stories at your level?

Aprendos has hundreds of podcast episodes with exercises that adapt to you.

Try Aprendos for free