Thieves steal 132 bottles from a starred restaurant in Madrid. The value of the loot is 200,000 euros. Apparently there is a system to such actions
Rafael Sandoval, one of the owners of the Restaurant Coque, answers questions from the Spanish press after the spectacular wine heist.
A nasty surprise awaited star chef Mario Sandoval from Madrid recently. In his restaurant “Coque” in Madrid’s exclusive Chamartín district, brazen thieves took advantage of the rest day after a hectic weekend to help themselves in the wine cellar of his establishment. Connoisseurs call his bodega, in which 25,000 bottles are stored, the «sacristy». The showpiece of his collection is a wine bottle that is unique in the world and even survived the naval battle of Trafalgar on the Spanish Atlantic coast in 1805.
Black market for fine wines
The police assume that the wine robbery was commissioned work. It was not said whether the Trafalgar bottle was also stolen. A total of 132 bottles are missing, the value of which is estimated at around 200,000 euros. “We are deeply saddened, because some of the stolen wines belonged to my grandfather and came from emblematic vintages such as 1925 or 1936,” Sandoval complained to the Spanish daily El Mundo.
The burglary happened through an adjoining pharmacy that had been vacant for weeks because the owner had retired. “The thieves were only after our wine cellar, otherwise nothing is missing,” says Sandoval. The head chef is convinced that there is a black market for fine wines that can be sold at top prices in international gourmet circles.
The burglary came almost a year to the day after an even more spectacular wine heist in Spain. The setting was the sleepy town of Cáceres in Extremadura, where the Michelin restaurant Atrio has a wine cellar with more than 40,000 bottles. Here the damage was even greater. A couple of crooks stole 45 bottles worth 1.6 million euros.
The pair acted cunningly. The 28-year-old woman reserved the tasting menu for two and a room in the adjoining hotel. When checking in, she presented a Swiss passport. But later it turned out that the passport was fake. The woman was actually Mexican. In her homeland she was even crowned Miss Mexico in 2016. Her companion was a 47-year-old Romanian with a Dutch passport.
No one was surprised that the cultured couple spoke English. At that time, a new episode for the TV series “Game of Thrones” was being filmed, and there were already many international actors there. After the meal, which cost 195 euros a head, the couple were given the usual tour of the wine cellar in this restaurant
After that it was early to rest. After midnight, the Mexican woman called the receptionist, allegedly plagued by a strong feeling of hunger. The kitchen was closed, but the diversion worked. The concierge rushed into the kitchen to prepare a salad himself. As a result, he lost sight of the surveillance monitors. The couple at this time rushed to the wine cellar and chose their booty.
Rogue couple extradited to Spain
The most expensive bottle came from the Château d’Yquem winery, a noble sweet wine from 1806 that was offered on the wine list at 150,000 euros. This bottle had disappeared, as had hardly affordable Burgundy wines from the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti. The police were able to arrest the two crooks this summer at the border from Montenegro to Croatia. Thanks to a European arrest warrant, they were extradited to Spain. They have been behind bars since July, but the stolen wines have never been found.