Caves de Taillevent hit by audacious heist

High-end Parisian wine merchant Les Caves de Taillevent was hit by an audacious heist last weekend, where the thieves used a rod to ‘fish’ €50,000 worth of wine without setting foot on the premises.

As has been reported across the local press, the robbery was discovered on Monday morning, with the thieves having stolen about 20 bottles of grand cru wine worth a combined €50,000.

What bottles the gang stole was not revealed but they almost certainly included top Burgundy for so few bottles to be worth so much.

The thieves were described in Le Pointe as “very organised” given how the gang went about their heist.

Gaining access to the building next door, they cut a 50cm hole in the wall between the two buildings and then used a rod to ‘fish’ for the bottles they were after.

In this way they avoided setting off the alarm, being caught on the security footage or leaving a single trace of their activity on the premises.

This technique is reportedly becoming increasingly common in high-end robberies. Le Pointe noted that €60,000 of haute couture clothing was stolen from a shop in Toulouse this June in a similar fashion and, three years ago, thieves used the Paris catacombs to tunnel into a private wine collection and steal €250,000 worth of fine wine.