Montreal reporter remembers maple syrup heist ahead of ‘The Sticky’ TV series [Video]

When news broke that thieves stole 3,000 tons of maple syrup from a warehouse near Trois-Rivières, the Montreal Gazette’s Anne Sutherland knew it would become one of the top stories of the year.

“The only thing that got more clicks than that in the previous month was William and Kate coming to Canada,” said the now-retired career reporter.

The details were unusual. The heist was carried out by a group of disgruntled maple syrup producers. They syphoned off 10,000 barrels from their federation’s reserve over a year long period. and resold it in the Maritimes and Vermont to unsuspecting buyers. The perpetrators were at war against the province’s monopoly that determines prices, quality control, and exports.

“You have all the clichés that you could put in like sticky fingered liquid gold, hot sirup — it just screamed, ‘this is hysterical,'” recalled Sutherland, who said the perpetrators garnered a lot of …