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Our Pancakes Are Saved! Charges Filed In Canadian Maple Syrup Heist

Fresh maple syrup in two maple leaf-shaped bottles, with other bottles behind. Police officials have arrested three men who allegedly siphoned the sweet treat from 16,000 storage barrels stored in a Quebec warehouse.
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Fresh maple syrup in two maple leaf-shaped bottles, with other bottles behind. Police officials have arrested three men who allegedly siphoned the sweet treat from 16,000 storage barrels stored in a Quebec warehouse.

After months on their sticky trail, Canadian police have finally fingered the people allegedly involved in the great Canadian maple syrup caper Bill Chappell told us about in August.

While police interviewed 300 people, they didn't let that sap their strength — and on Tuesday, three men were expected in court to answer charges related to the theft of the estimated $22 million in maple syrup. There are warrants out for another five people, the Ottawa Citizen reports.

The investigation — which involved Quebec provincial police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canada Border Services Agency, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — isn't over yet. But according to CTV News, authorities were able to get back two-thirds of the 2.7 million kilos of stolen syrup siphoned from a Quebec warehouse between August 2011 and July 2012.

CTV reports that "the stolen amount would have provided a one-tablespoon topping for a whopping 183 million flapjacks."

On a side note, remember the Ontario cheese-smuggling ring?

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tanya Ballard Brown is an editor for NPR. She joined the organization in 2008.
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