A Romanian-Dutch woman and a former Mexican beauty queen have been arrested in Croatia for the theft of 45 exclusive bottles of wine worth almost 1.7 million euros in Spain. The Spanish police reported this on Wednesday after a nine-month search across Europe.
The 29-year-old woman is said to have distracted staff at the well-known hotel restaurant El Atrio in the western Spanish city of Caceres in October last year by ordering room service when the kitchen of the two-Michelin-starred restaurant was closed. Her 47-year-old companion, meanwhile, snuck into the wine cellar, opened it with a key he’d stolen during a previous visit, and filled three backpacks with the pricey bottles.
One of the bottles contained a “unique” 19th-century Bordeaux wine worth €310,000, police said of the meticulously planned theft. The two had visited El Atrio three times before and, like many guests, had been given a tour of the wine cellar.
They left Spain soon after the robbery and were eventually identified by Croatian border guards when they arrived from Montenegro. The Spanish police worked with colleagues in the Netherlands, Croatia and Romania and with Interpol to get them. Spain has asked Croatia to hand them over.