Story highlights 9 indicted on organized crime charges related to bourbon thefts

Employees at two Kentucky distilleries among those indicted

(CNN) When 65 cases of 20-year-old Pappy Van Winkle -- one of the rarest and most expensive bourbons in the world -- were reported missing from a Kentucky distillery in October 2013, it was the crime heard round the whiskey-drinking world.

Franklin County Sheriff Pat Melton, the man leading the investigation into the estimated $26,000 in missing Pappy, said at the time that the high-end heist was "indicative of an inside job." But ever since, the trail went largely cold.

Until now.

On Tuesday, a Franklin County grand jury indicted "nine members of a criminal syndicate that collaborated to promote or engage in the theft ... and illegal trafficking" of liquor from two different Kentucky distilleries: Frankfort's Buffalo Trace -- makers of Pappy -- and the nearby Wild Turkey Distillery, makers of the eponymous bourbon, according to the indictment.

Just like making good bourbon -- a specific type of whiskey synonymous with the Bluegrass State -- Melton's case required time to develop and old-fashioned Kentucky ingenuity.

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