A crew of crooks with champagne tastes raided a Brooklyn liquor store at gunpoint, binding and gagging three employees with duct tape and making off with $45,000 worth of high-end booze, officials said Tuesday.
The thieves entered Willmohr Liquor and Wine store on Willmohr St. near E. 98th St. in Brownsville — open only since March — just after midnight on Jan. 20, asking a 41-year-old clerk if “they sold liquor.”
Then the bandits pulled guns on owner Geoffrey George, 39, and his two employees, tying them up with duct tape.
“The guy pulled out a gun. Then another guy pulled out a gun and they said, 'Get on the floor.' By the time we did that, two other guys came up behind (them)," George, 39, a Guyanese immigrant, said Tuesday. "They duct-taped us foot and hand, and on our mouths."
With their helpless victims lying face-down on the floor, the thieves took their time and emptied out the store, taking 55 cases of Hennessy cognac, 10 cases of Patron tequila, 10 cases of Ciroc vodka and five cases of Baileys Irish Cream. They loaded the boxes into waiting cars.
“They were here for more than one-and-a-half, almost two hours,” George said. “They were taking out the liquor by the cases. When one vehicle was filled, they called up another vehicle. Vehicle by vehicle, until they took out the majority, if not all, of the top-shelf liquor.”
"They took all the Hennessy, the Ciroc, the Patron, all the pricey liquor," George said. "The cheap stuff, they didn't take that."
The thieves even took orders from friends, George said.
“You could hear them talking, asking, ‘You want stuff? Come over.'"
The thieves also took $3,000 worth of New York Lottery tickets, more than $500 in cash and two cellphones, officials said.
No injuries were reported.
