Montreal reporter remembers maple syrup heist ahead of 'The Sticky' TV series

When news broke that thieves stole 3,000 tons of maple syrup from a warehouse near Trois-Rivières, the Montreal Gazette's Anne Sutherland knew it would become one of the top stories of the year.

"The only thing that got more clicks than that in the previous month was William and Kate coming to Canada," said the now-retired career reporter.

The details were unusual. The heist was carried out by a group of disgruntled maple syrup producers. They syphoned off 10,000 barrels from their federation's reserve over a year long period. and resold it in the Maritimes and Vermont to unsuspecting buyers. The perpetrators were at war against the province’s monopoly that determines prices, quality control, and exports.

"You have all the clichés that you could put in like sticky fingered liquid gold, hot sirup — it just screamed, 'this is hysterical,'" recalled Sutherland, who said the perpetrators garnered a lot of sympathy at the time because they stood-up against the controlled market for the syrup.

The story got international attention. Netflix did a documentary a few years later. Sony pictures had a movie in the making. And now, Hollywood is turning it into a TV series on Amazon Prime.

Writer Brian Donovan, who's credits include American Housewives, said he first heard of the story through in-laws from Canada.

"My brother-in-law came up to me, you know, and we're just having drinks and eating cheese and crackers, and he said, 'Hey, have you ever heard of the great maple syrup heist?' And I said, 'No, I have not. But please tell me right now.' And so he told me all about it, and he also told me about Montreal and all the different fascinating elements there," said Donovan.

One quick call to his partner Ed Herro, and the two spent six years turning the true-crime series into a fictional adaptation.

Hollywood actors like Jamie Lee Curtis joined the cast. But many other characters are played by Quebec’s best known stars, like Guillaume Cyr, the warehouse's dimwitted security guard.

Guy Nadon plays the all-powerful head of the maple syrup monopoly, and Suzanne Clement, best known for her role in the daily drama Stat on Radio-Canada, plays a tough-talking police detective. The tone is one of black comedy.

"It just it feels like normal people. You know, it's normal people trying to figure out how to steal $20 million, which is just crazy, like if you and I decided to run a heist for $20 million we'd be terrible at it,” laughed Donovan, who stayed in Quebec during the entire filming of the production.

The series is fictionalized to some degree. But Donovan says he wanted it shot in Quebec, with a Quebec crew, who all spoke their lines in English.

And now Quebec’s sweetest export could become your next guilty pleasure.