FREDERICTON, New Brunswick – A truck driver who sent a birthday card to an ex-girlfriend signed “the beer bandit” was found guilty Tuesday of stealing a shipment of 50,000 cans of Moosehead beer.

A jury deliberated for about 90 minutes before convicting Wade Haines, 31, of theft more than $5,000.

As the verdict was read in a Fredericton court, Haines briefly rubbed his eyes, and stared at the jury as if in disbelief.

Haines, of no fixed address, was charged after a truckload of beer from Moosehead brewery in Saint John disappeared last summer.

He was supposed to deliver the beer destined for the Mexican market to Etobicoke, Ontario, last August, but neither he nor the truck ever made it.

Instead, the tractor-trailer was found with fewer than 300 cans of beer and the engine running in a parking lot in Grand Falls, along the border with Maine.

Haines was arrested in Ontario.

He told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police he delivered the beer to a trucking yard in Fredericton on Aug. 13 but never returned to pick up the shipment as he was supposed to on Aug. 15.

Instead, Haines said he abandoned the tractor portion of the vehicle, with the keys in it, next to a highway in Fredericton and hitchhiked to Ontario.

Haines said he wanted to get away for a while after he had a fight with his girlfriend. He said he was expecting to lose his job after cashing a canceled paycheck a day earlier.

Police testified during the trial that Haines’ story didn’t make sense as he didn’t contact anyone, despite a blizzard of media stories about his disappearance and the missing beer.

In his closing arguments, Crown prosecutor Cameron Gunn said he found Haines’ story hard to believe.

In order to be true, Gunn said, someone would have had to take the abandoned trailer from the side of the highway, match it up with the trailer of beer in the yard, and drive it to Grand Falls without raising suspicion.

“Highly improbable is a generous description,” Gunn said.

Cari Watson, Haines’ ex-girlfriend, testified that she received birthday cards from Haines while he was in jail awaiting trial.

She said Haines told her to look on the back of one of the cards for something funny.

Watson said it read: “Copyright. Made in Canadian jail by the beer bandit.”

The Crown’s case was based mainly on circumstantial evidence, as there was no direct proof Haines had any contact with the beer after driving the shipment to Fredericton.

But the Crown argued the circumstantial evidence weaved a credible story.

“The strands are wrapped around each other until it’s strong, and points without a shadow of a doubt to Haines’ guilt,” Gunn said to the jury.

Defense lawyer Ron Morris said Watson’s testimony likely swayed the jury.

“I think Cari Watson cost us this case,” Morris said outside the court, after the jury’s decision. “I think she turned on Mr. Haines for whatever reason. I think that hurt.”

Watson testified that Haines called her from Ontario, wanting to put money into her bank account, and later said he would be getting a lot of money once he was freed from jail.

She said Haines wouldn’t tell her the whole story about the beer because he was concerned her telephone had been tapped by the police.

Only about 14,000 of the distinctive Spanish-labeled stolen cans have been recovered, many of them along rural roads outside Fredericton.

At one point the Moosehead company, based in Saint John, capitalized on the worldwide publicity generated from the case by selling a “Beer Heist Tour ’04” T-shirt at its outlets.

There have been no other arrests in the heist, but Crown prosecutors believe Haines didn’t act alone in the robbery.

RCMP Sgt. Gary Cameron told reporters Tuesday that police plan to charge anyone found in possession of the beer.

Morris isn’t convinced.

“I think they got one guy and the only way they’ll find any more beer is if they go to a beach party somewhere,” he said. “I really feel that it will be the end of the investigation.”

Haines will remain in custody until sentencing March 7.