Mexican beauty queen caught in chase across Europe after stealing wine worth millions

In a plot straight out of a movie, a former Mexican beauty queen and her Romanian-Dutch accomplice were arrested in Croatia after a nine-month chase across Europe for stealing bottles of exquisite wine worth USD 1.7 million from a famous hotel-restaurant in Spain. One of the wine bottles was from 19th century.
In a statement, Spanish national police said that 45 wine bottles worth a total of 1.65 million euros, including one ‘unique’ 19th-century vintage worth 310,000 euros, were spirited out in a meticulously planned theft from the cellars of the famous hotel-restaurant El Atrio in the western city of Caceres, on October 27, 2021.
The 29-year-old Mexican woman, who has competed in a beauty pageant as per Spanish media, distracted waiters of El Atrio, a Michelin-starred restaurant, while her 47-year-old male accomplice entered the wine cellar using a master key and stole the wine bottles worth 1.7 million dollars.
The next day, hotel CCTV captured the pair, who had checked in with false Swiss identity documents, checking out at 5.30 a.m. and leaving on foot with no forensic trace of their presence left at the hotel, it said, leading police to initially believe an organised gang was behind the heist.
The police statement said that the pair had visited the hotel before and had, like many customers, been given a tour of the wine cellar.
Among the stolen wine was a bottle of prestigious French Bordeaux Chateau d’Yquem from 1806, which had an “incalculable” value, said sommelier Jose Polo, a co-owner of El Atrio.
“That bottle was part of my personal history, almost part of me, of the history of Atrio, but also of Caceres, of its citizens, of wine lovers all over the world,” Polo said in a letter to local media quoted by Spanish daily El Pais.
The two suspects left Spain within days and were pursued for months across Europe before being identified by Croatian border guards as they crossed from Montenegro, police said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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