Tuk-tuk driver Iuliu Kubola, 61, has pleaded guilty to three counts of burglary after stealing an estimated £24,000 of wine from a restaurant in the UK capital earlier this summer, City of London police said.
CCTV footage released by police showed Kubola, of Richie Street in Islington, picking wines off a shelf in the restaurant’s cellar before placing bottles in a wheelie bin.
He wheeled the stolen wine outside and loaded the bin onto the back of a pedicab on the street, showed the footage, which was posted to Facebook backed by a soundtrack of UB40’s classic 1983 hit, ‘Red Red Wine’.
A still from CCTV footage released by City of London police. Credit: City of London police / Facebook.
It’s the latest example of fine wine being targeted by thieves. There have been a series of fine wine thefts across Europe in recent years, notably targeting fine dining restaurants.
Police said Kubola broke into a restaurant on Threadneedle street, near to the Bank of England, on 6 May and stole 73 bottles of wine. He cycled away with the bottles on his pedicab, police said.
He subsequently returned to the same restaurant on 15 June and stole another three bottles, worth around £680, before turning up once again a few days later. On the third occasion, he left without taking anything, police said.
The 61-year-old was arrested outside a nearby bar on 22 June at around 12:30am after PC Jordan Felstead recognised him from a police briefing.
‘Thanks to the good work by our officers, who spotted him and quickly made enquiries and the arrest, Iuliu Kubola will face the consequences of his criminality,’ said detective constable Marcus Fairclough, in the Criminal Investigation Department of the City of London Police.
‘Burglary has a significant impact on businesses and residential communities. We will always take this type of criminality seriously and thoroughly investigate all evidential leads, including forensics, to bring those perpetrators to justice.’
Police didn’t name the restaurant and didn’t reveal the identity of the wines, but added Kubola will be sentenced in September.
Restaurant wine heists have taken place in several cities in the past few years, from Oslo and Copenhagen to Paris and Madrid.
Perpetrators are not always caught, but one high-profile case in Spain saw a couple imprisoned for stealing bottles worth hundreds of thousands of euros from Michelin-starred Atrio in Cáceres.
Their haul included a super-rare bottle of Château d’Yquem 1806.
