If Toby Curtsinger’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he masterminded the most famous whiskey heist in history.
And now, Curtsinger is front and center on a new Netflix trailer promoting next month’s release of “Heist,” a docuseries highlighting “Pappygate,” as Curtsinger’s crime was dubbed, and two other schemes.
“Think about it,” Curtsinger said in the beginning of the trailer (watch below). “If you had an opportunity to steal … Like, if you worked in a bank with the vault wide open with nobody seeing you, are you gonna do it, if you don’t get caught?”
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In 2013, Buffalo Trace reported more than 200 bottles of 20-year-old Pappy Van Winkle and 13-year-old Van Winkle had vanished from its Frankfort distillery.
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The ensuing investigation determined that Curtsinger, a former distillery worker, would load whiskey barrels onto a pickup truck, cover them with a tarp and then haul them to deep-pocketed bourbon collectors. Investigators said the stolen bourbon had a face value of $100,000; its street value likely was far more than that.
Several others were charged in the case, but Curtsinger received the harshest sentence of 15 years in prison. A month into his incarceration, he was released on shock probation.
The “Heist” series premieres on Netflix on July 14. The two other stories center around the 2005 Miami airport heist and the 1993 robbery of an armored truck loaded with $3 million in Las Vegas casino cash.
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