Dhe pride of the wine cellar was a Château d’Yquem, vintage 1806. The noble sweet wine, which was offered for 150,000 euros, disappeared with 44 other bottles on the night of October 27, 2021 in one of three inconspicuous backpacks. A couple made off at dawn with wine valued at €1.6 million on the menu from the two-star restaurant at the luxury hotel Atrio in Cáceres. The insurance later appraised the rarities at 750,000 euros.
The wine theft in Extremadura was one of the largest and most spectacular in Spain. Now a former Mexican beauty queen and a Romanian window cleaner are on trial in Cáceres. The public prosecutor’s office is demanding five years’ imprisonment for both of them, and their lawyers are asking for an acquittal. To date, not a single bottle of wine has been found. Speculations about a sale to Russian millionaires have not been substantiated so far.
But there are security camera footage and DNA evidence in room 107, where they both retreated after their tasting menu and a tour of the cellar. During the night she was overcome by ravenous hunger. The only hotel employee who was still in the house went from the reception to the kitchen to make them a salad. Constantin D. took advantage of his absence, grabbed the magnetic card, opened the basement and filled three backpacks with the stolen goods. He knew which of the tens of thousands of bottles – the wine list is said to fill 400 pages – were the most valuable.
They afforded good hotels and an expensive apartment
In the early morning, the former Miss Mexico and the Romanian with a Dutch passport, who used to clean high-rise facades in Madrid, disappeared. They were arrested at the Croatian border last summer and extradited to Spain. They were wanted with a European arrest warrant. Before that they are said to have been in the Netherlands, Germany, Romania and Hungary and have afforded good hotels and an expensive apartment.
Both met in Barcelona in 2017 and have since lived in Madrid, where Priscila G., now 29, is said to have taken acting classes and looked after small children. Constantin D. had had a penchant for expensive wine for a long time. In the Salamanca district of the Spanish capital and in a duty-free shop at Geneva airport, he attempted to steal a bottle of Balvenie whiskey worth more than 5,000 euros and several bottles of the Burgundy he later bought in Cáceres than stole 30 bottles. They had scouted out the Atrio Hotel on at least one previous visit. The evening before the theft, Priscila G. checked in with a fake Swiss passport and paid for the overnight stay with a prepaid card. Both of them could not be seen under a wig and with corona masks. In court, one of the two owners now recalled the friendly couple he chatted with over dinner. The two foreigners went unnoticed in the medieval town where an episode of Game of Thrones was being filmed.
In Madrid’s Chamberi district, both were interested in a star restaurant with an exquisite wine cellar and reserved a table there before the theft in Cáceres. On October 30, 2022, thieves stole 132 bottles worth 200,000 euros from the cellar of the “Coque” in the early morning. The police suspect that it was a contract theft. On the rest day, the thieves gained access through the window of a neighboring pharmacy into the basement called the “sacristy” with more than 20,000 bottles. But the couple from Cáceres has an alibi. It was already in custody at the time. The “Atrio” in Cáceres has also overcome the shock. It now has a third Michelin star.