Latest / The Front / Audacious wine heist leaves Australian collectors in the dark

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Audacious wine heist leaves Australian collectors in the dark · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Friday, September 4, 2026. It's Friday and many of
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: us need a stiff drink, especially the veteran wine collectors
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: who've allegedly been robbed in what appears to be an
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: audacious heist from storage facilities around the country. It's the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: high-end version of a crime epidemic that's sweeping retail and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: our journo, Eli Greenblatt, who broke the yarn, is here
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: in just a moment. These are the words of a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: wine collector who wants to remain anonymous after his precious
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: bottles were allegedly stolen. We've used voice actors throughout this
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: episode to protect the identities of the alleged victims.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I'm just shocked and gobsmacked, really. Some people still might
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: not know that some of their wine is missing.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Eli Greenblatt is a senior business reporter with The Australian
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: and he's reporting on something I don't think Eli probably
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: gets to cover too often, a heist. Eli, you often
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: are doing things like mergers and acquisitions and retail strategy
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and supply chains. You must love getting to do a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: bit of true crime.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: It's very different doing a bit of true crime. We've had, unfortunately,
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: in Victoria and much of the country, a real increase
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: in the spate of retail crime. So people walking into stores,
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: quite bad, actually threatening staff. stealing from shops, supermarkets and
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: department stores and sports shops. And that's been quite awful.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: But this is very different, a wine heist by some
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: alleged criminals who have done this. And it is quite shocking.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: And it's being spoken about a lot in wine circles.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: It's the talk of the wine industry at the moment.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: When I think about wine collectors, I generally think of
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: them as being the kind of people who have a
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: cellar under their house or at least a fancy kind
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: of mahogany rack where they keep their wine. But actually,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of them keep them in storage facilities. Why
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: is that?
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: That's correct.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: I think it's a lot safer or it's seen as
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: a lot safer. It can be temperature controlled. It's got
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: round-the-clock security. It's got CCTV cameras. You've got to check in.
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: You've got to look at a camera when you're checking,
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: signing in. You need passes and codes. There's security guards.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: And I think it's seen as quite a sensible way
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: to store your wine. And these are collectors often who've
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: got hundreds, maybe even thousands of bottles. And they may
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: not just have the space in a cellar in their house.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: to fit thousands of bottles. And these wine arcs, some
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: of them are called, or wine lockers or vaults, can
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: be a really good way to store the wine, to
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: keep track of it. You can go in whenever you want.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: We know you've got your pass to the storage facility.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: You can go in. You can pick up a bottle
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: on the way to dinner. You can get a few
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: bottles for the weekend. So it can be a great
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: way really to store your extra wine that maybe you
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: don't want to drink immediately. You want to drink sometime
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: in the future.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: This is also a significant asset class, isn't it? It's
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: not just about potentially drinking wine.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: One of the clients of the storage facility I spoke
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  Speaker 4: to who believes that their wine is now missing, he's
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: an investor, he's a collector. He doesn't drink the wine, actually.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: He's happy to hold on to it as an investment.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: Some of them have sentimental value. He doesn't drink them.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: A Hinchkey Hill of Grace was stolen. That was one,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: a 1994 box that I've had for almost 30 years.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: Some of these wines are worth in the thousands of dollars.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: One of the wines which is missing now, allegedly stolen,
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: is a Hungarian wine that.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Costs about $ 2, 500.
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  Speaker 4: And these will be traded like any other asset, traded
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: on websites, at auction houses. And some of them are
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: very popular and some of them are in demand.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Your story mentions names like Henschke's Hill of Grace, Penfold's Grange.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: What other sorts of wines are we talking about here?
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a French champagne called Salon, which can
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: sell for a few thousand dollars. There was that Hungarian
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: wine I spoke about, a Toque, which is, yep, $ 2, 500.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: There's Krug, Dom Perignon, certainly Penfold Grange, which is probably
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: Australia's most iconic luxury wine.
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  Speaker 3: Lots of champagnes.
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  Speaker 4: There was some Scottish whiskeys, some Glenfiddich, like 30-year-old Glenfiddich,
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: some Japanese whiskeys. So really, especially I think from what
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: I've heard from the clients of this national storage group,
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: lots of champagne, especially Dom, Cristal, that kind of thing.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Champagne seems to have been a very popular one.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So what do we know about how this heist happened?
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  Speaker 3: There's going to be a court case soon.
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: We need to be careful. And the South Australian police
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: have said that they've arrested two individuals from Victoria. They
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: were denied bail and they have a court appearance coming up,
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: you would imagine, quite soon. We don't know a lot
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: because the customers of National Storage aren't getting much information.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: They're having to go in themselves, go through their collections,
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: see what's missing, do an inventory. What we do know
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: is that some individuals allegedly entered the premises. These are
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: people who were not Customers of the facilities in Melbourne,
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: Adelaide and Sydney entered the facilities.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: Late at night, were able to stock up the wine.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: And according to one of the people involved, one of
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: the clients, from what he was told by National Storage,
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: that there was a truck or some.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: Kind of car involved inside. And they drove off.
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: Now, this is quite common for cars to go into
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: these facilities. If you've ever driven past one of these
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: self-storage facilities, there's often an internal driveway. So you can
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: drive a truck in, you can drive a car in,
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: and you can load up.
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  Speaker 3: Whatever you need.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: It could be furniture, it could be other equipment, and
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: then just leave. And that looks like what these individuals
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: have allegedly done.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you mentioned at the top of the interview,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: there's all sorts of security protocols at the facility. So
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: how on earth did they get past the cameras and
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the security guards?
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  Speaker 4: Yes, that's what all the people who I spoke to
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: are scratching their heads about and they find quite baffling.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: How could that happen? Because the security should be absolutely watertight.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: It is really like a Fort Knox.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: It's got fences and security gates and security guards and
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: CCTV and a lot of technology as well, I'm told.
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: in terms of when you access the locker. I heard
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: from one of the clients that it's a bit like
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: if you open a Gmail from a strange place, it
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: will say, is this you? Did you try to open it?
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  Speaker 4: So that's also another level. And there are security guards
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: there walking around. So it is very strange how this
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: could happen. A lot of people scratching their heads. They're
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: trying to get answers from National Storage, not getting much
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: at the moment.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So the collectors that you spoke to, how did they
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: find out that they had been affected?
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Well, one of them just.
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: Found out when he was on the way to dinner
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: and decided to drop in and pick up a bottle
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: of wine and notice the doors were ajar or the
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: doors had been damaged. And then word quickly spread among friends,
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: people who go there who have got this kind of facility.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: They'll say, oh, you better check your facility. Mine's just
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: been broken into and wine is missing. Some of them
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: just heard that way on the grapevine, so to speak.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: through colleagues or they were just going to check and
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: a staff member told them. In some instances, it looks
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: like National Storage did email some customers to say there
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: had been an entry into their locker, into their vault.
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: In some instances, and as I reported in the article,
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: the lock wasn't actually tamped with or broken. So imagine
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: a large cage with padlocks around it. The padlocks, in
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: some instances, we're told by the victims, these padlocks weren't touched.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: They were fully intact, not tamped with, but the doors
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: had been jammed open and jammed open enough where you
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: could just walk through and take whatever you want.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: And so what's National Storage saying to you if the
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: customers are frustrated about the way they're communicating with them?
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  Speaker 3: Nothing at the moment, nothing at all. They just didn't
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: get back in contact. We've tried to speak to them.
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  Speaker 4: National Storage was listed on the Stock Exchange recently, but
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: it was taken over by a New York property group
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  Speaker 4: called Brookfield, which is very active in the Australian market,
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: buying up businesses. And they bought it together with GIC,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: which is the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Singapore. They've got
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: their headquarters in Brisbane. We did obtain one email that
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: National Storage sent to one of its clients about this
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: issue and and tell them that yes it's unfortunate and
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: you know they feel for them but they take no
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: liability it's in the standard contract they signed that national
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: storage is not liable for any loss or damages they
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: said they should make an insurance claim and really that
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: seems to be about it and they said also that
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: they'll help with the police if the police ask for
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: anything like cctv footage but again the victims i spoke
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  Speaker 4: to have said so far really the company's been quite unhelpful.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I would love to see the video National Storage apparently
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: have that might help us all understand what was lost.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: You mentioned legal action. Is that just the criminal matter
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: that's before the courts?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so there is a criminal case now, a court
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: case before the South Australian Court, and these two individuals
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: were denied bail. So that will play itself out, of course,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: and we'll follow that. One of the victims I spoke
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: to is a lawyer. He's not a criminal lawyer or
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: any type of– I think he's a tax advice lawyer,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: but he's got a lawyer's mind, I suppose, and he's
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: starting to collect information, collect names of these customers who
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: were affected and getting their stories together with the possibility
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: of potentially launching their own action against National Storage.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: It's truly baffling. I have been in contact with other
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: customers of National Storage who might be missing their wine
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: and are a victim of this. For now, I'm taking
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: names and collecting details about a possible civil case against
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: National Storage. There are a dozen or so people in
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: a group chat that are now sharing what they know
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: and what they might have lost.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Coming up, more of my conversation with Eli Greenblatt. You
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: mentioned that theft is rising at all levels of the
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: retail chain. Yes. What's driving that?
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  Speaker 4: It seems very strange and it seems to have come
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: out of nowhere and it burst onto the scenes, especially
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: in Melbourne, which is now the crime capital of Australia.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: It could be cost of living.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: It could be a watering down of some of the
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: criminal sanctions against theft, especially younger perpetrators in terms of
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: the age of when you're criminally liable for an offence.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: That's changed a bit.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: It's these gangs which are becoming actually quite nimble and
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: very educated in terms of what they steal and how
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: they steal.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Where they will.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: Kind of steal on contract. They'll look out for items
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: that they want to take. They know where they are.
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: They'll go on to online chat groups or kind of
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: meeting places and they'll just hire criminals in the same
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: way that you would maybe hire a cleaning lady or
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: hire a gardener, looking for business, making offers. Obviously, this
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: is in the dark web, perhaps. It's not easy to find.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: And just hiring people. And they could have given them
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: the names of certain alcohol brands, certain wine brands to take.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: Or in the case of retail theft, we're seeing cases
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: of gangs just marching in and stealing tennis rackets, sneakers,
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: high-end expensive brands that they know they can sell very
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: quickly on online marketplaces.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: We're all used to self-service checkouts now. And of course,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: that's one less human being that you have to interact
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: with on your way out of a shop. I think
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: now in supermarkets, most of us have been kind of
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: startled to see auto closing gates and cameras that are
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: watching you as you scan your stuff into the bags.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Has that helped supermarkets or is that just damaging their
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: reputation and relationship with the customers?
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: I think the supermarket thinks it has helped, and those
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: gates are really important in lowering crime rates. And we've
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: heard recently from Coles and Woolworths in the last year
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: or so when they brought these gates in, as well
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: as security guards, and you're right, those cameras that watch
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: as you scan, and certainly they're saying that the crime
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: rates have dropped, that the shoplifting, the theft has dropped.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Because of that. But then it does cause problems. You're right.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: It blocks your exit. It can be annoying. It makes
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: you feel like a criminal sometimes. Certainly.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: In the old days before self-service, for example, there were
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: gates at Coles. And the CEO, a new one who
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: was appointed, actually took them out, believing it was actually
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: a negative. It made customers feel bad. It made customers
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: feel guilty. And actually, it was not a benefit. So
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: those gates were taken out. But now they're being put
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: back in across really the major supermarket chains because self-service
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: has become so popular.
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  Speaker 3: It's used so much. I think it's very easy, really,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: if those gates weren't there to steal.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: So they put the gates back in, the cameras are
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: in as well, and that has helped to lower the
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: crime rate.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: If you're not paying check out. personnel, though, you can
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: probably wear the loss of quite a few packet of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Tim Tams because you're saving a huge amount anyway. Do
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: you think the supermarkets should just kind of wear that
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: cost rather than making every customer feel like a criminal?
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that is a tough one because the supermarkets wear it,
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: but then the shareholders wear it too in lower profits
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: and lower sales. And it could be quite substantial, even
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: a percent or two. These supermarkets, Coles and Woolies, they
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: would have in the vicinity of $ 30, $ 40 billion in
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: annual sales, even 1% or 2% theft rate. That's a
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: huge number. So I think they've got to crack down
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: on it. I think they have to show zero tolerance.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: And also, of course, remember.
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: Criminals, if they think they can get away with it,
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: they will flock to these stores and that's where they
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: start threatening staff.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: And that can be awful as well.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: We have many cases of staff at supermarkets, at Bunnings Hardware,
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: where staff have been threatened, staff have been assaulted. And
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: in many occasions, the staff, they're kids, right? They're teenagers
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: and they shouldn't have to face this kind of stuff.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: So I think it's probably a necessary evil. And I
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: think the numbers we're talking about, again, when you're talking
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: of $ 20, $ 30 billion in sales every year, 1% or 2%
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: in shoplifting or shrinkage, as they call it in the jargon,
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: that's a lot of money.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Well, Eli, I can't wait to follow the rest of
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: the great wine robbery with you. So thank you very much.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Eli Greenblatt is a senior business reporter with The Australian.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: He's our in-house expert on everything from supermarkets to supply chains.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: You can find all Eli's scoops at theaustralian.com.au slash business.