Is 'The Sticky' Based on a True Story? Let's Dive Into This Wild Tale of a Maple Syrup Heist

The great Margot Martindale is gracing the small screen in a Prime series that teaches the world that sometimes wealth is in the eye of the beholder. The Sticky premieres Dec. 6, 2024, and "follows Ruth Landry (Martindale), a tough, middle-aged maple syrup farmer who turns to crime when the bureaucratic authorities threaten to take away everything she loves," per Variety.

Who would have thought that maple syrup could be such a hot commodity? Well, Canada did and does. According to the Canadian government, "Canadian maple products were exported to 67 different countries around the world in 2023," and brought in $615 million to The Great White North.

It stands to reason this is an extremely valuable export that deserves to have part of its journey writ large. This begs the question, is The Sticky based on a true story? Details to follow.

Actor Chris Diamantopoulos, who plays mobster Mike Byrne in the series, sat down with The Direct to discuss how much of the truth was stuck to The Sticky. He is probably one of the best people to field this question, as he hails from Toronto and referred to the crime it's based on as a bit of Canadian folklore, per People Magazine.

"This is based on a true story," said Chris. "It's just, you know, we've got a lot more lawyers in 2024 than they used to have back then. The story is ridiculous."

The series pulls from a string of crimes that went on for several months in Quebec, between 2011 and 2012. In July 2012, the Federation of Québec Maple Syrup Producers hired an accountant from Veragrimar to audit its inventory, per Bloomberg.

Michel Gauvreau arrived at the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve expecting to find 16,000 barrels filled with liquid Canadian gold: maple syrup. That's not what happened.

The blue barrels were hundreds of rows, stacked six high, which meant Gauvreau had to climb them in order to get an accurate count. While scaling one of them, it tipped over nearly causing him to fall. Each barrel should have weighed roughly 620 pounds, which means tipping over is highly unlikely.

He discovered it was empty, and that wasn't all he found out.

After contacting the higher-ups at the Federation, they began examining the other barrels. Some were empty while others were filled with water. Two months later they figured out that six million pounds of syrup, valued at $18 million wholesale, had vanished. This was the largest incident of agricultural theft since the 860 head of cattle stolen in Queensland, Australia.

It was also a huge blow to the Canadian economy. What happened?

"To steal that amount of maple syrup means you have to know the market," said Simon Trépanier, acting director of the Federation. "We are talking about big players." The market Trépanier was referring to was of course the value of the maple syrup, but also some behind-the-scenes warring going on between the Federation and syrup producers.

To solidify its dominance, the Federation needed 40 million pounds of maple syrup reserves.

To accomplish this, they were building a facility that could house all the reserves. In the meantime, all of those barrels needed to be put somewhere, and that somewhere was a rented warehouse in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford with only one security guard to watch over it.

It should be noted that the Federation is described as a maple syrup cartel that sets the prices for all Canadian maple syrup producers. It makes sense that someone might want to take them down a peg.

It turned out to be at least 17 someones, led by a man named Richard Vallières. In 2016 he was convicted of fraud, trafficking, and theft.

He was sentenced to eight years in prison and was ordered to pay a $1 million fine, equivalent to what he made while selling the maple syrup. That was later overturned, and Vallières was forced to pay back the total value of the maple syrup.

If he can't pay the $18 million back, he could get six more years in prison.