Thieves made off with tens of thousands of cans of Pabst beer in two separate heists from a Southern California warehouse on the same day, police said. Pabst Blue Ribbon has turned the thefts — valued by police at $70,000 — into a light-hearted social media promotion. But police in Montclair said Friday that investigators are trying to determine whether they were part of a single operation.
In the first heist, about $45,000 worth of beer headed to Tucson, Arizona, was picked up but never delivered, according to police. An hour later, a “purported subcontracting company” submitted fake documents to pick up another $25,000 worth of beer, Montclair police said in a news release. Both thefts occurred on Aug. 17 at an Anheuser-Busch distribution center about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of Los Angeles.
Roughly 34,000 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and non-alcoholic Old Milwaukee beer — more than 1,500 cases — were stolen, according to a police report obtained by the Los Angeles Times. In Instagram posts, Pabst put the weight of the stolen cargo at 40,000 pounds (18,145 kilograms) and started a countdown seeking its return. It added, “P.s. this is real and we are deadly serious.”
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