Bronx Man Sentenced After Using U-Hauls to Steal Massive Amounts of Corona and Modelo Beer Then Bragging About it on Social Media
The paper trail reads like a strange logistics case study. Rental trucks, overnight runs, repeat routes. The only thing missing was a dispatch manager. Instead, federal authorities say they successfully prosecuted a large-scale beer theft operation in New York.
On December 18, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced that Jose Cesari, 29, of the Bronx, was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison.
According to the press release, he reportedly led a multistate beer theft ring that relied heavily on U-Haul box trucks and, er, social media bravado.
Cesari, who went by the nickname “Cry,” pleaded guilty in July 2025 before U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos.
From roughly July 2022 through April 2024, prosecutors say Cesari ran what they called the “Beer Theft Enterprise.” It’s a Bronx-based crew that targeted railyards and beverage distribution facilities across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.
The crew repeatedly stole large shipments of Corona and Modelo beer shipped from Mexico
They’d load them into rented box trucks, and haul everything back to the Bronx for resale.
According to court filings, the thefts typically happened at night. Crews met in the Bronx, drove to the target location, then broke into railcars or warehouses using tools like angle grinders.
Hundreds of cases at a time were moved into waiting vehicles, often U-Hauls. At least one theft involved a firearm. Participants were usually paid a few hundred dollars for the night’s work.
Cesari personally took part in more than three dozen beer thefts, prosecutors said, and recruited others to join
He also documented parts of the operation on Instagram. One photo recovered from his phone showed him standing on a railcar filled with Corona while holding an angle grinder.
Other posts advertised access to police scanners and promised recruits fast money, including claims of “100k in ten days.”
He bragged openly about the profits too, posting a photo of himself in a Corona shirt and joking that while others got rich off the coronavirus, he got rich off Coronas, with a train emoji for emphasis. The joke didn’t age so well in court.
Federal investigators estimated the losses to rail and beverage companies at hundreds of thousands of dollars. As part of his sentence, Cesari was ordered to forfeit $473,710.52 and pay $518,710.52 in restitution. He will also serve three years of supervised release after prison.
