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Sometimes, there\u2019s nothing better than an iced cold beer in the summer heat. Other times, there\u2019s nothing more anxiety-inducing than trying to drink 4,496.33 gallons of beer before the police come knocking on your door.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening this week after Pabst Blue Ribbon made an announcement asking the public for help finding truckloads of beer stolen from a distribution center in Montclair, Calif.<\/p>\n
\u201cSTOLEN\u2014 40,000lbs of beer,\u201d it posted on Instagram. \u201cWe don\u2019t fault you for wanting to brag to your friends how much PBR you have, we just wish you obtained it the honorable way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company gave the thieves a deadline of \u201c18 days and 44 minutes\u201d to return the beer with \u201cno questions asked,\u201d likely a nod to the brand\u2019s 1844 founding (though the company hasn\u2019t confirmed that). It also said it would offer a reward for information.<\/p>\n
Montclair police referred Fortune <\/em>to a press release detailing an investigation into two separate cargo thefts from the Anheuser-Busch distribution center, both occurring on Aug. 17. <\/p>\n The first happened around 10 a.m., when a $45,000 shipment was picked up and never arrived at its Tucson, Ariz. destination. The second happened about an hour later, when a purported subcontracting company used fraudulent documentation to arrange the pickup of roughly $25,000 in Anheuser-Busch and Pabst Blue Ribbon product.<\/p>\n PBR put the tally at 1,602 cases containing 33,984 cans of beer, including 860 cases of 15-packs of 25-ounce PBR cans and 546 cases of 30-packs of 12-ounce cans, plus 196 cases of nonalcoholic Old Milwaukee. The combined loss, including pallets and packaging, came in at just over 40,000 pounds. Because some online have pointed to Pabst\u2019s social posts as causing some confusion about whether the whole thing was a marketing stunt, Montclair police clarified: \u201cWe are working this case, but no trucks were stolen. Just the cargo.\u201d<\/p>\n However, this is far from the biggest beer heist ever: In 2010, thieves broke into a storage facility in Germany\u2019s Rhineland during World Cup celebrations and hauled off 10 truckloads of beer over a long weekend\u2014about 300,000 liters, worth an estimated $3 million.<\/p>\n Pickups arranged with fake paperwork, sometimes called fictitious or strategic cargo theft, aren\u2019t new. Fortune<\/em> reported on the tactic a decade ago, when fraud accounted for roughly one in 10 cargo thefts and food was the most attractive target, since it can be resold through unscrupulous distributors with no serial numbers to trace. <\/p>\n The method has only gotten more sophisticated. This summer, organized groups are now using spoofed emails, fake URLs, and \u201cghost carriers\u201d to hijack freight, prompting an FBI warning about cyber-enabled tactics used to impersonate legitimate businesses.<\/p>\n While a reward (like the one PBR is offering for information on the theft) is a private contract in which the company promises payment, it has no power to stop a district attorney from filing charges. That\u2019s because, ultimately, the decision to prosecute belongs to the state, not to the victim of the crime. Only a prosecutor, or in some cases a federal agency acting with one, can actually grant immunity, and that requires a formal deal as opposed to a social media post.<\/p>\n One of the most famous examples stems from Lady Gaga in 2021, after her two French bulldogs, Koji and Gustav, were stolen at gunpoint and her dog walker was shot. She offered a $500,000 reward \u201cno questions asked\u201d for their return. Jennifer McBride brought the dogs back and sought the money, but Los Angeles prosecutors charged her anyway, and she pleaded no contest to receiving stolen property. <\/p>\n When McBride later sued Gaga for the reward plus $1.5 million in damages, arguing the offer was unconditional, a judge sided with Gaga: McBride\u2019s own admission meant she knew the dogs were stolen, and Gaga\u2019s promise never had the power to protect McBride from the state.<\/p>\n In the case of the PBR heist, the beer has yet to turn up. Pabst\u2019s most recent Instagram update read simply: \u201cBeer is getting warmer, trail is getting colder. Clock\u2019s still ticking.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nNo questions asked doesn\u2019t mean no legal action taken<\/h2>\n