A brazen booze bandit pulled off an “Ocean’s Eleven”-style heist to reportedly swipe $600,000 worth of pricey wine from a high-end California liquor store over the holiday weekend.
The conniving connoisseur cut a hole in the roof to break into Lincoln Fine Wines in Venice, Calif., and rappelled down before spending nearly four hours hauling away expensive French vintages, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Stolen bottles included Chateau Petrus 2016, which retails for $4,500, and brands from the Cotron-Charlemagne family, including a 1994 vintage, according to the outlet.
Although it’s unclear which exact Corton-Charlemagne blends were taken, a 1994 chardonnay from the label is listed online for $13,000.
Lincoln Fine Wines owner Nazmul Haque said some security cameras and sensors in the store were disabled days before the heist but wouldn’t speculate whether the robbery was an inside job, according to the Times.
Store manager Nick Martinelle said he found one of the security cameras covered with tape from the back of a “Smile: You’re on Camera” sign that was yanked off the door of the wine cellar — where many of the most expensive bottles were stored, according to CNN.
“It was like something out of ‘Ocean’s Eleven.’ We just couldn’t believe it,” he told the outlet.
The masked robber was seen on security cameras pulling into the wine store’s parking lot in a white pickup truck stripped of its license plates last Saturday at 12:30 a.m., the paper reported.
The thief, who remains on the loose, wore a black hoodie that says “Anti Social Social Club” on the back, plus a red baseball cap and gloves.
Haque was alerted by his security company of the break-in around 4 a.m. after one of the working sensors went off and immediately raced to the store, located about 3 miles from the famed Santa Monica Pier, he told the paper.
But all he found were empty wine crates, broken display cases and ransacked shelves.
“There were a couple of crates abandoned on the roof, which makes me think he heard me coming,” Haque told The Times.
One entire cellar wall full of French wines containing bottles that included Bordeauxs and Burgundys costing $1,000 on average was also cleared out.
Also snatched were a 2008 Bonneau du Martray, a 2018 Louis Latour, a 2019 Domaine Roulot and a 2020 Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey.
Haque estimated that 60% of his high-end inventory was swiped, totaling about $600,000.
“I’ve been working on a list of missing bottles, and that price could go up by the time I’m done,” he told the outlet.
“To lose 10, 15 years’ worth of work overnight is devastating. I’m not sure if I will recover emotionally,” he added, noting that it took him “years to build up that collection.”
One pricey spirit the thief failed to grab was a 1975 Glenfiddich “Rare Collection” single-malt whiskey, valued at $9,000.
Most other treasures, though, were swiped — whiles less expensive bottles like Dom Pérignon Champagne were left untouched.
The Los Angeles Police Department has yet to identify a suspect, and customers are speculating that the robbery was an inside job since only the best vintages appeared to be targeted.
Representatives for the LAPD did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The Post has reached out to Lincoln Fine Wines for comment.
Martinelle called the incident “creepy,” telling CNN that it spooked him that the thief knew the location of the cellar from the roof and appeared to know that the most valuable bottles were in the cellar’s drawers rather than shelves.
Haque told The Times that “whoever did this was very knowledgeable of the diagram of the store.”
In an Instagram post, the wine shop shared photos of glass shattered across the floor, the hole that was cut in the store’s ceiling, empty shelves and surveillance clips.
The caption said it was “offering a $10,000 reward for catching the burglars,” and said the store believes that there could have been as many as three thieves involved.
