But the man’s bold theft from Quebec failed when police were informed and he and his accomplices went to jail. Now, the leader behind Canada’s notorious robbery has a new challenge: to pay his victims $ 9 million ($ 7 million) or spend another six years in prison. The Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday ruled that Vallières, the mastermind behind the “Canada Maple Syrup Robbery Robbery”, a $ 17 million Canadian caper that sparked widespread research – and a Hollywood script – must return the amount of syrup he stole and then sold, not just the proceeds of his crime. Starting in 2011, a group of thieves secretly hid syrup from thousands of white metal barrels in warehouses rented by the Federation of Maple Syrup Producers, an organization that represents nearly 7,000 syrup producers and controls nearly 80% of the global maple syrup supply. Knowing that the barrels in the strategic stock were inspected only once a year, the thieves replaced the syrup with water. Because the federation controls the sale of syrup in Quebec, the illicit product was transported across the border to New Brunswick County, where it was packaged in smaller batches and sold to both legal buyers and black market exporters. In 2012, after an inspector noticed that some barrels were empty and others were lighter than they should have been, the federation realized that 9,571 barrels – worth nearly C $ 18 million – had been stolen from its nose. The theft led to police raids in New Brunswick, Ontario and south of the border in Vermont and New Hampshire. Quebec police arrested 16 people as part of their investigation, identifying Vallières as the group’s leader. They also seized two forklifts, tankers used to transport the stolen product and four huge kettles used to boil the syrup. The brazen theft became part of Netflix’s Dirty Money series. In 2016, Vallières was found guilty of fraud, human trafficking and theft and sentenced to eight years in prison, the harshest sentence ever imposed on those involved in the robbery. The judge, Raymond Pronovost, fined him $ 9.4 million, based on the value of the syrup he was able to sell. Vallières received 10 years to pay the payment, otherwise he will face up to six years in prison. The judge cited Canadian law, which states that when stolen property cannot be returned to its owner, the fine must be equal to the value of the stolen goods. In the appeal, this amount was reduced to only C $ 1 million – the amount claimed by Vallières was the profit from his theft. But on Thursday, Canada’s Supreme Court disagreed, arguing that a court has no power to reduce the fine and that the original fine should be reinstated. “Distinguishing between an offender’s income and expenses in order to determine the perpetrator’s profit margin would be tantamount to legitimizing criminal activity,” the court wrote. The court said lawmakers in Canada had drafted the penal code to “deprive offenders of the fruits of their crimes” and prevent them. “Parliament sends a clear message that ‘crime does not pay’ and thus seeks to discourage individuals from organizing and committing profit-oriented crimes,” the court wrote. Vallières recently received a daily release after two failed attempts and told the release board that he planned the robbery for the lure of big profits, but also to settle a grudge against the Federation. In 2007, he was fined C $ 1.8 million for illegally selling maple syrup. “I wanted revenge [against the Federation] “because they chased me and snatched my house.” But the time he spent behind bars, in a high-security facility, seems to have shaken him. At the hearing, Vallières told the board that he “saw a guy being killed for a pear – a battle for a pear”. Vallières’s lawyer, Julie Giroux, told reporters her client was disappointed with the decision and that returning such a large fine would be difficult.
