A Romanian man and his Mexican girlfriend have been sentenced to prison in Spain for stealing 45 bottles of vintage wine worth EUR 750,000 from a luxury restaurant in 2021.

The judges ruled that the theft was a violent robbery, even though the two deceived the receptionist of a hotel in Cáceres, near the border with Portugal, to steal the key to the basement where the collection of the Atrio restaurant was stored. The restaurant had two Michelin stars at the time of the robbery.

The man, Constantin Dumitru, 49, was the one who planned the robbery.

His girlfriend, Priscila Guevara, a 28-year-old Mexican citizen, ordered a salad at 2 AM, knowing that the receptionist was alone in the hotel and had to leave the reception to make the delivery. Dumitru then took 45 bottles of vintage wine from the restaurant's cellar, with a catalog value of EUR 1.6 mln. One wine, dating from 1806, was worth EUR 350,000 at the time.

Despite the catalog prices, however, experts later established that the market value of the 45 bottles of wine was around EUR 750,000, according to El Pais and cited by Biziday.ro.

Nine months later, Dumitru and Guevara were caught at the border between Croatia and Albania, but the bottles of wine were never recovered.

The judges considered the two as authors of a "particularly serious" robbery and, in addition to sentencing them to years in prison, also ruled that they had to pay compensation worth EUR 753,000. The man, who has a long criminal record, was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison, while the woman received a sentence of 4 years.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Dreamstime.com)