Seattle Police make major liquor theft bust
Nov 2, 2012, 12:01 PM | Updated: 12:56 pm
Seattle Police detectives have just completed a month and a half long investigation into a liquor theft, making a series of arrests and recovering hundreds of stolen bottles.
KIRO Radio, in this exclusive story, can confirm that Seattle Police served search warrants on Thursday and made six arrests in this operation, recovering 451 bottles of liquor.
The sting began in September when a man was picked up by patrol officers with stolen liquor hidden in his clothes. He told officers he had stolen thousands of dollars worth of liquor and was providing several people with the bottles. SPD turned the man into a confidential informant and was able to sell what the suspects believed was stolen liquor.
Two of the people arrested Thursday worked as valets at the Warwick Hotel. Our sources don’t know what they did with the liquor, but it never entered the hotel.
An 18-year-old man was affiliated with a nut shop at Pike Place Market was also arrested. Our sources say that suspect was then reselling the liquor to area high school kids and other underage people. Two other people were arrested with this suspect when they showed up with him to buy the liquor from the informant.
The sixth person arrested is the owner of a flower shop at Pike Place Market. Police believe he was packaging the stolen liquor and flowers to wedding parties.
Police recovered 451 bottles of liquor and 11 guns in their investigation.
The men are expected to be charged with the attempted trafficking of stolen property. The flower shop owner will also likely face possession of stolen property charges.
