Couple who stole $1.7 million of wine from Michelin-starred restaurant receive jail sentence

A couple have been sentenced to four years behind bars after stealing $1.7 million worth of wine from a Michelin star restaurant.

It all went down back in 2021 when an unnamed couple - a former Mexican beauty queen and her Romanian-Dutch boyfriend - were staying at the luxurious Atrio hotel in Cáceres, Spain.

During their stay, they visited hotel's Michelin star restaurant, and left with 45 bottles of wine hidden inside travel bags and wrapped in hotel towels to avoid breakage. Here's the moment they fled with the loot:

Officers who investigated the heist at the time said that it had clearly been planned in 'minute detail.'

In the build up to the robbery, the couple had visited the restaurant three times over the course of a summer, according to the court, to scope out the scene.

On the night of the robbery, the woman checked in to the Atrio hotel using a fake Swiss passport. Her boyfriend arrived later as an unregistered guest.

The couple then went out for their 14-course meal in the exclusive restaurant, which was followed by a guided tour of their wine cellar.

In the early hours of the following morning, the man returned to the wine cellar with a stolen key, which the court claims he stole from reception.

According to local paper El País, the woman had called for room service at 2am to distract the receptionist who was alone on the nightshift.

The receptionist left their desk for just about 20 minutes, which gave the man enough time to steal the wine cellar key.

Atrio Restaurant

Included in their loot were two bottles from famous French winery Chateau d'Yquem.

One 1806 bottle from the winery was valued at an eye-watering $371,000 and another at $47,475, according to police.

In total, the couple stole 45 bottles of wine, valued at a total of an estimated $1.7 million.

After the robbery, the pair fled the scene of the crime by car. The theft ended up sparking an international police hunt, but it wasn't until nine months later, in 2022, that authorities finally tracked down and arrested the couple at the Croatia-Montenegro border.

The wine has not yet been recovered, but the restaurant has been compensated a total of $794,600 from their insurance company.

The couple has, in turn, been ordered to pay that back in damages.

While the woman has been sentenced to four years behind bars, the man was given four and a half years for armed robbery.

The couple will have an opportunity to appeal their sentence to a higher court, the ruling stated.