Few things beat an ice-cold beer in the summer heat. Few things are more nerve-racking, though, than trying to drink 4,496.33 gallons of beer before the police come knocking.

That is the situation this week after Pabst Blue Ribbon publicly asked for help locating truckloads of beer stolen from a distribution center in Montclair, Calif.

"STOLEN— 40,000lbs of beer," the company posted on Instagram. "We don't fault you for wanting to brag to your friends how much PBR you have, we just wish you obtained it the honorable way."

Pabst gave the thieves a deadline of "18 days and 44 minutes" to return the beer "no questions asked"—likely a nod to the brand's 1844 founding, though the company has not confirmed that. It also said it would offer a reward for information.

Montclair police referred Fortune to a press release detailing an investigation into two separate cargo thefts from the Anheuser-Busch distribution center, both occurring on Aug. 17.

The first took place around 10 a.m., when a $45,000 shipment was picked up and never arrived at its destination in Tucson, Ariz. The second occurred about an hour later, when a purported subcontracting company used fraudulent documentation to arrange the pickup of roughly $25,000 in Anheuser-Busch and Pabst Blue Ribbon product.

PBR put the tally at 1,602 cases containing 33,984 cans of beer: 860 cases of 15-packs of 25-ounce PBR cans and 546 cases of 30-packs of 12-ounce cans, plus 196 cases of nonalcoholic Old Milwaukee. The combined loss, including pallets and packaging, came to just over 40,000 pounds.

Because some online suggested Pabst's social posts made it unclear whether the incident was a marketing stunt, Montclair police clarified: "We are working this case, but no trucks were stolen. Just the cargo."

The theft is far from the biggest beer heist on record, however. In 2010, thieves broke into a storage facility in Germany's Rhineland during World Cup celebrations and hauled off 10 truckloads of beer over a long weekend—roughly 300,000 liters worth an estimated $3 million.

'No questions asked' doesn't mean no legal action taken

Pickups arranged with fake paperwork—sometimes called fictitious or strategic cargo theft—are not new. Fortune reported on the tactic a decade ago, when fraud accounted for roughly one in 10 cargo thefts and food was the most attractive target, since it can be resold through unscrupulous distributors with no serial numbers to trace. Beverage and food shipments remain attractive for exactly that reason: unlike electronics, they carry no serial numbers, making stolen goods hard to trace once they enter secondary sales channels.

The method has only grown more sophisticated. This summer, organized groups have been using spoofed emails, fake URLs, and "ghost carriers" to hijack freight, prompting an FBI warning about cyber-enabled tactics used to impersonate legitimate businesses. California, where the Montclair theft occurred, has long reported among the highest cargo theft totals of any state in FBI and industry data, a function of its dense web of warehouses, rail hubs, and ports moving goods through the region.

A reward—such as the one PBR is offering for information about the theft—is a private contract in which the company promises payment. But it has no power to stop a district attorney from filing charges. The decision to prosecute belongs to the state, not to the victim of the crime. Only a prosecutor, or in some cases a federal agency acting with one, can actually grant immunity, and that requires a formal deal rather than a social media post.

One of the most famous examples involves Lady Gaga in 2021, after her two French bulldogs, Koji and Gustav, were stolen at gunpoint and her dog walker was shot. She offered a $500,000 reward, "no questions asked," for their return. Jennifer McBride brought the dogs back and sought the money, but Los Angeles prosecutors charged her anyway, and she pleaded no contest to receiving stolen property.

When McBride later sued Gaga for the reward plus $1.5 million in damages, arguing the offer was unconditional, a judge sided with Gaga: McBride's own admission showed she knew the dogs were stolen, and Gaga's promise never had the power to protect McBride from the state.

As for the PBR heist, the beer has yet to turn up. Pabst's most recent Instagram update read simply: "Beer is getting warmer, trail is getting colder. Clock's still ticking."

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.