Fake Delivery Driver Steals $150K Juice Cleanse

A fake delivery driver in Queens, N.Y., had better get to drinking quickly, because he may have made off with more than $153,000 in fruit and vegetable juices this week, but those bottles won't stay fresh for long.

Juice cleanses are so hot right now. Though the idea of replacing food with juice as a way of cleansing the body and eliminating toxins has been called everything from a fad diet to a socially acceptable eating disorder, juice cleanses have become a big business. New York-based BluePrint started out as a boutique juice maker in Chelsea just seven years ago, but has ridden the juice cleanse trend to become a $20 million operation selling juice flavors like lemon, cayenne, agave and cashew, vanilla, cinnamon.

It was BluePrint's pricey juices that went missing on Friday. According to the New York Post, a delivery truck showed up at the company in Long Island City, and the driver filled out a shipment slip and loaded his truck up with 13 pallets of juice holding 15,303 bottles.

A few hours later, the real delivery truck showed up and everyone said, "Uh-oh."

"We realized this happened when our real driver showed up a couple of hours later," said BluePrint co-founder Zoe Sakoutis.

The bottles sell for about $10 apiece, but the purloined juice won't last very long. The heist happened while the bottles were supposed to be shipped off to be pressurized. Pressurized bottles have a 30-day shelf life, but without that step the juice will only last about five days.

For the more DIY-inclined, check out our best juice recipes for some interesting ways to juice on your own.