Celebrity Chef Guy Fieri Exposes $1 Million Tequila Heist in Elaborate Shipping Fraud

Celebrity chef Guy Fieri has revealed details of a major theft that led to the loss of over $1 million worth of Santo Tequila during a sophisticated shipping fraud. The crime, which occurred in November 2024, involved 24,000 bottles of tequila vanishing while being transported from Mexico to the United States.

Fieri, co-founder of Santo Tequila alongside Van Halen’s Sammy Hagar, described the incident during an interview on “60 Minutes,” which aired Sunday. He recounted how the company’s president first alerted him to the disappearance of two full truckloads of product, stating, “You’re not going to believe this, but we lost two truckloads of Santo Tequila.” Fieri noted his immediate suspicion of a criminal operation, comparing it to scenes from Goodfellas.

The tequila was bottled in western Mexico and moved across the border into Laredo, Texas. Two semitrailers were scheduled to deliver the cargo to a warehouse in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, but the shipment never arrived. Investigators discovered that the logistics company had subcontracted the delivery to another carrier, which then passed the job to two additional trucking firms. Those final companies were later identified as fraudulent.

The fake operators used spoofed GPS tracking and forged email updates to mislead Santo Tequila into believing the trucks were delayed due to “mechanical failure,” while the real cargo was rerouted elsewhere. Keith Lewis, a former law enforcement officer and president of CargoNet, a firm specializing in cargo theft investigations, told “60 Minutes” that such schemes reflect growing trends in logistics crime. He likened the process to online dating, emphasizing how supply chain transactions now rely on digital communication rather than face-to-face interactions.

Approximately three weeks later, authorities recovered about 11,000 bottles of the missing tequila in Los Angeles, California. The second truckload remains unlocated. Fieri highlighted that the incident exposed vulnerabilities even among companies with robust security measures, stating, “If it could happen to us with what I believe were pretty strong measures of security and awareness… then everybody’s vulnerable.”

Santo Tequila, founded in 2019 by Fieri and Hagar, produces its spirits through the El Viejito Distillery in Jalisco, Mexico.