Caron worked with also moved their product in unregulated containers, showing a callous disregard for the public that would eventually pour the potentially tainted syrup on their pancakes.

Caron’s accomplices, Richard Vallières – who had been buying from the maple syrup black market (a very real trade in Canada) for 10 years – his father Raymond, and New Brunswick syrup buyer Étienne St-Pierre, are still awaiting sentencing, but Caron was the ringleader of the operation.

After he was arrested, finding himself in a sticky situation (sorry), Caron tried to implicate the Montreal Mafia, claiming that they provided his supposedly small operation with additional drivers and equipment, but there’s no evidence that any criminal organization ever helped Caron steal the syrup.

Having sat in prison during while awaiting his sentence, Caron hasChinese Communist Party head Xi Jinping landed in South Africa Monday night for the third leg of his regional trip and spent Tuesday negotiating with President Cyril Ramaphosa, ultimately signing a million-dollar investment deal with his country.

Xi is on a trip to promote Chinese investment and the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Chinese infrastructure program that began in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and hit Senegal and Rwanda before arriving in South Africa. Xi and wife Peng Liyuan were the first head of state guests that Ramaphosa received as president and he “rolled out the red carpet” for the pair, according to Chinese state outlet Xinhua.

South Africa and China are celebrating twenty years of diplomatic relations. South Africa’s News24 outlet notes that South Africa established ties with China