Guy Fieri Just Lost $1 Million In A High-Octane Tequila Heist

The "Fast and The Furious" movie series has managed to recruit huge names like Charlize Theron and Brie Larson, and after a Hollywood-ready tequila heist this past month it may need to think about adding celebrity chef Guy Fieri to the cast. It's a story that sounds so impossibly wild that it must not be true, but according to Fieri and People, two trucks of his new Santo Tequila were hijacked near the U.S. and Mexico border in Laredo, Texas, with an estimated $1 million of the agave spirit stolen. That is over 24,000 bottles, which Fieri says the Mexican distillery is now scrambling to replace before the busy holiday season. 

While Fieri was reportedly notified on November 14, 2024, the tequila heist apparently took place several days beforehand on November 9. Santo Tequila is actually a joint celebrity liquor business between the chef and musician Sammy Hagar, with Hagar founding the company in 2017 and Fieri joining in 2019. Santo president Dan Butkus told People, "This is the strangest thing I've ever seen in the spirits industry over 25 years. I've never seen anything like this." Some of the stolen cargo included Santo's expensive aged extra añejo tequila, which takes four years to make, and which Fieri has said they may put out a $10,000 offer on in an effort to gain information and try and salvage something the company cannot replace.

The details of the tequila heist itself are as unbelievable as any part of the story. The Santo Tequila was stolen from two trucks four days apart, and the police suspect that whoever stole the shipments used a GPS emulator to fake the tracking of the trucks. The shipments had been intended for Pennsylvania and California, but neither made it. Right now, the working theory is that the company that was doing the shipping illegally double-brokered the transportation to another trucking company that was used to steal cargo. Once the tequila had been loaded into the new company's trucks, the driver sent out fake photos about the trucks breaking down that matched the spoofed GPS tracker's information. 

The tequila was supposedly not actually stolen until crossing into the United States, but the realization came too late to do anything about it. One truck was reportedly tracked to Los Angeles, where it was seen being unloaded, but the other truck has still not been found. Unfortunately, alcohol thefts like the one Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar's company has suffered have become increasingly common, with 19,000 bottles of Hacienda Chactun Tequila being stolen late last year in a very similar fashion, and Verisk's CargoNet data showing a 25% increase in cargo thefts in 2024 over 2023. The main concern now is how Santo Tequila will overcome the loss and continue to employ the independent Mexican distiller that produces the tequila.