MAPLE syrup evokes bucolic images of days spent in Canadian woods tapping trees and boiling the sap to concoct an ambrosial nectar. But beneath that wholesome picture lies a darker tale of theft, smuggling and bootleg sales reminiscent of the Canadian liquor industry's shenanigans during the American prohibition. It took just over a year, but this week the Quebec police arrested the 23rd and last person wanted in connection with the great "maple syrup caper".

The affair came to light in August 2012 when a somewhat red-faced Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers revealed that 6m pounds (2.7m kilograms) of syrup worth an estimated C$18m ($17.5m) was missing from its Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve. The larceny was discovered after an accountant climbed a stack of barrels to take inventory and nearly toppled an empty one.

To the delight of headline writers everywhere, it appeared a maple-syrup mob was involved. The theft of such volumes required an organisation with access to big lorries, the equipment needed to move barrels (which weigh about 620 pounds each) and international contacts among large-volume purchasers in the food and confectionary industries. The Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police force, was called in. It enlisted the aid of Canada’s national police and border security agencies as well as agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the United States.

Two-thirds of the stolen goods have been recovered. But while tracking lorry loads of syrup across provincial and international borders—one Vermont candy-maker found in possession of “hot” syrup insisted it had been purchased in good faith—the police uncovered illegal sales not tied to the caper. Not all Quebec syrup-makers, it seems, are happy with the federation’s monopoly.

The federation has responded with a heavy hand, seizing syrup from producers suspected even of contemplating selling the sticky stuff on the side. It is the OPEC of the maple syrup world: it assigns quotas to Quebec’s 7,400 producers, responsible for 120m pounds of the total 170m pounds produced in North America in 2013. It has the legal right to nearly all their production (save small quantities for independent sale), and keeps a strategic reserve of about 40m pounds to supplement poor harvests and prop up the world price.

On September 16th a Quebec judge told three producers who challenged the federation’s seizure of an estimated C$550,000-worth of syrup that the action was legal under provincial law. Some syrup-makers may feel this sort of overweening power is a bigger cause for concern even than the most brazen heist.