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https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicamercuri/2024/12/06/the-true-story-behind-prime-video-the-sticky-the-great-canadian-maple-syrup-heist/
The True Story Behind Prime Video’s ‘The Sticky’—The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist
Ruth Clarke (Margo Martindale) in The Sticky
Jan Thijs/Prime VideoAmazon Prime Video’s comedy series The Sticky centers around an unexpected plot: a multi-million dollar heist to steal millions worth of maple syrup. Loosely inspired by the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist—one of the largest agricultural thefts in history—the show brings this bizarre true story to life, with a few twists along the way.
The Sticky screenwriter and co-creator Brian Donovan discovered the story of the infamous heist by accident. "I was at a boring family Christmas party, just looking for anything interesting to talk about," he recalled to CBC. "Fortunately, my brother-in-law is Canadian, and he was like, 'Hey, have you heard of the great maple syrup heist?' And I said, 'No, but please tell me everything about it right now.' And he did. He told me all about the crime, and then he also told me about Montreal and the different mafia groups that are there, and all the fascinating things about the area."
Donovan and co-creator Ed Herro were inspired by the heist and set off to create The Sticky, Prime Video’s six-episode series about Canadian maple syrup farmer Ruth Landry (Margo Martindale). When Ruth discovers her farm is under threat, she plans to steal millions of dollars' worth of maple syrup as revenge, enlisting the help of a warehouse security guard (Guillaume Cyr) and a mobster (Chris Diamantopoulos).
Read on to learn about the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist, including the fate of the thieves and some of the biggest changes the series made for the big screen.
What Was The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist?
Remy Bouchard (Guillaume Cyr) in The Sticky
Jan ThijsIn late 2011 and early 2012, a group of thieves orchestrated a plan to steal nearly 3,000 tonnes of maple syrup, valued at $18.7 million, from a warehouse operated by the Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec (FPAQ) in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Quebec. The FPAQ is the governing body that oversees the syrup trade in Quebec.
The syrup was stored in unmarked white metal barrels, inspected only once a year. The thieves used trucks to transport the barrels to a remote sugar shack, where they siphoned off the syrup, refilled the barrels with water, and then returned them to the facility, according to Bloomberg. Eventually, the thieves began siphoning syrup directly from the barrels in the reserve without refilling them. The stolen syrup was then shipped south and east, where it was trafficked in small batches to avoid detection and sold to syrup distributors who were unaware of the operation.
The theft was discovered by the federation in July 2012 during a routine inventory check, when they found a barrel that was supposed to be full of syrup but was empty. Officials soon realized that many of their barrels contained water instead of syrup. An investigation by Quebec provincial police led to the arrest of 26 individuals, including the ringleader behind the scheme, Richard Valliere.
In April 2017, Valliere was found guilty of theft, fraud and trafficking stolen goods. He was sentenced to eight years of prison and was fined nearly $9.4 million, CBC reported at the time. Vallières's co-accused, including his father, Raymond, and a New Brunswick-based syrup reseller, Etienne St-Pierre, were also found guilty for their roles in the robbery.
What Did The Sticky Change From The Real-Life Heist?
Remy Bouchard (Guillaume Cyr), Ruth Clarke (Margo Martindale), Mike Byrne (Chris Diamantopoulos) in ... [+]
Jan ThijsAccording to Donovan, the characters in The Sticky are not modeled after real people because the heist involves individuals who are are still alive and committed crimes, according to Time.com. Donovan told the site that his approach was to not “reproduce the truth” but “just be inspired by what happened and roll from there.”
The biggest change from the actual Canadian Maple Syrup heist and the show is the pace in which the robbery happens. In the series, the heist occurs over a few hours, as the thieves schemed to replace the barrels with lake water. In reality, the crime was “was slow, methodical and, let’s face it, kinda boring,” Herro wrote in a piece for The Hollywood Reporter.
Herro explained that the real story wasn’t fun at all, but once he allowed himself to “diverge” from the facts, “all those unexpected qualities raced to the forefront.” For example, The Sticky opens with a human body in the barrel of syrup, but that didn’t happen in 2012 heist.
In the series, the thieves gain access to a warehouse thanks to a security guard named Remy, a man who lives with his parents and is figuring out this purpose in life. His father even accidentally shows up to the heist to visit his son at work. According to Time.com, while someone on the inside was helping the robbers, Remy’s character is completely fictional. Instead, it was a unnamed person who rented another part of the warehouse who helped carry out the heist.
Herro also told CBC that another creative liberty they took was portraying the heads of the syrup management organization as corrupt and using it for the wrong reasons. "We're not saying that is true of the real world at all… but we wanted Ruth to be put upon so she could strike back,” he explained.
All six episodes of The Sticky are streaming on Prime Video. Watch the official trailer below.
Monica is an experienced entertainment journalist who started writing for Forbes in 2019. She covers everything from
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