Police Find 2,500 Bottles of Wine Stolen from Seattle Shop

Developments in the case of the thieves who stole $648,000 worth of wine from a Seattle shop: Police have recovered 2,500 missing bottles, the Seattle Times reports. The bottles were recovered from a Seattle storage facility less than a mile away from Esquin Wine Merchants, where the bottles were stolen from. The thieves — who stole over 200 cases of wine — seem to have the wines in a temperature-controlled environment, so there's hope that the bottles were not damaged. At this point, police need to go through "the difficult task" of cataloguing and processing each bottle; it's possible they might have recovered most, if not all, of the stolen lot.

Another development in the case is that police have identified and arrested the second of the two thieves. While Esquin employees were able to identify one of the thieves as customer Samuel Harris, his accomplice was not immediately recognized. Local news station KOMO reports that on Monday Luke Thesing, a colleague of Harris', was arrested and charged. The two men are accused not only of theft but of attempted arson for cutting gas lines in the building. Both men are being held in jail on $500,000 bail and will be arraigned on December 19.

Apparently police found a journal in Harris' SUV labeled "The Plan" that outlines the crime and reading materials like Thinking About Crime, Is it Accidental Fire or Arson?, and How to Commit the Perfect Crime at his home. Police are also investigating possible connections between the Seattle theft and a March theft in San Francisco.

· Police recover wine from Thanksgiving Day heist [Seattle Times]
· Second suspect arrested, charged in high-end wine heist [KOMO]
· Thieves Steal $648K Worth of Wine from Seattle Shop [-E-]
· All Wine Coverage on Eater [-E-]