Man sentenced for operating armed beer cargo theft enterprise targeting railyards and warehouses

The ringleader of a “sophisticated armed beer theft enterprise” operating out of the Bronx has been sentenced to years in prison, New York State officials say.

On December 18, 2025, officials announced that Jose Cesari was sentenced to 63 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release “for conspiring to commit—and committing—theft from interstate or foreign shipments,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

In July 2025, Cesari pleaded guilty to charges.

“Jose Cesari led an armed crew that repeatedly targeted railyards and warehouses, stealing massive quantities of beer and treating it like easy money,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “He took part in more than three dozen thefts and recruited others into the scheme. No more. Today’s sentence should send a message to anyone who thinks about stealing from businesses in the Southern District of New York: the women and men of this Office take these crimes seriously, and we will not tolerate them.”

Officials say that between 2022 and 2024, Cesari was the leader of the “Beer Theft Enterprise,” a criminal organization that broke into railyards and beverage distribution facilities throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York to steal Corona and Modelo beer, which it then brought back to the Bronx to sell.

In the years it was in operation, the Beer Theft Enterprise “carried out dozens of beer thefts, which cumulatively resulted in losses to certain railroad and beverage distribution companies of at least hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

A crew member carried a gun during at least one of the beer thefts.

The beer thefts were reportedly conducted overnight and that the group typically brought at least one U-Haul box truck to the target railyard or warehouse to be filled with cases of stolen beer.

From the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

As the leader of the Beer Theft Enterprise, Cesari participated in more than three dozen beer thefts in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, and recruited other members to the group. Cesari acted brazenly and without regard for the law.  For example, as shown in the image recovered from Cesari’s phone below, Cesari had his picture taken in the midst of one particular beer theft, scaling a railcar filled with Corona beer and holding a yellow angle grinder: 

Cesari played a crucial role in ensuring the success of the Beer Theft Enterprise.  Cesari regularly used his Instagram account to recruit new members.  For instance, Cesari advertised on social media that he could provide a “police scanner” from the “precinct of your choice with the purchase of train method” and promised recruits “100k in ten days sorry not a month.”

Cesari also frequently bragged about how much money he made from his beer heists.  For example, as shown in the image below, Cesari posted to his Instagram account an image of himself in a Corona t-shirt, and boasted that, while some people “got rich off of corona virus [virus emoji],” he “got rich off coronas [train emoji],” referring to the Corona beer that he had stolen:

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Port Authority Police Department, and the CSX Railroad Police Department.