Philadelphia heist: Nearly $500K worth of bourbon stolen from Pennsylvania warehouse

PHILADELPHIA -- An unusual daytime heist is under investigation after nearly half a million dollars worth of bourbon vanished from a North Philadelphia warehouse.

The theft happened Friday afternoon at a facility.

It appears to have been a coordinated cargo theft.

According to the chief operating officer of A-21 Wine and Spirits, Rob Koch, the shipment of about 1,800 cases of Noble Oak bourbon was being stored at the warehouse and was scheduled to be transported to a location in North Jersey.

But instead of reaching its destination, the bourbon was loaded onto a truck and taken.

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Investigators are now working to determine who carried out the theft, and where the missing shipment may have ended up.

"They showed up at American Supplies Warehouse. They said 'Hey, we're here for a pickup for A-21'," said Koch. "And it's 18 pallets of stuff. They didn't know what it was and, unfortunately, rather than going through the regular security protocols, the warehouse did not have all of the things they needed to actually release that product."

Koch says one of the protocols that failed was the fact that the picture on the ID the driver gave didn't match.

The company has asked distributors, retailers and transportation providers to be on the lookout for anyone trying to resell the stolen product.