Man “half kleptomaniac, half collector” tried in Dijon for stealing more than 7,000 bottles of wine

The fifty-year-old, an employee of a wine and trading house, had been surprised by his employer stealing bottles at work. Investigators found bottles worth 500,000 euros at his home.

The trial of a thief like no other is taking place in Dijon on Tuesday, August 6. A 56-year-old man, employed for many years in Burgundy wine houses, and who, year after year, stole more than 7,000 bottles. And the most incredible thing is that he kept them wisely.

When the Beaune police entered his home in early February, they were left speechless: in the basement of the fifty-year-old’s house, there were two cellars filled with bottles of wine. There were thousands of them, some labeled, others not. The investigators would even discover that the suspect had stored hundreds more at his mother’s house, not far from there.

In this cellar, for example, there are bottles of Vosne-Romanée. Total value: at least 500,000 euros. In all, 7,000 to 8,000 bottles were stolen, drop by drop, over the years, from three of his employers. The accused was nevertheless above suspicion, until he was caught red-handed.

At the beginning of February, while he was at work, this employee of a wine and trading house was spotted by a surveillance camera stealing four bottles from a pallet. “Half-kleptomaniac, half-collector”: this is how several connoisseurs describe this man with a modest lifestyle and a dull existence. In police custody, the man explained that he did not resell these bottles, nor did he drink them, but that he sat in the middle of his cellars to contemplate them.