News Mania / Piyal Chatterjee / 16th October 2024
Police in France and Italy claim to have dismantled a global fraud network that was passing off subpar wine bottles as vintages valued at much to €15,000 (£12,500) each. Six persons have been taken into custody in Paris, Turin, and Milan, including the alleged ringleader, a Russian national. They are accused of creating false labels to impersonate well-known French vineyards, which were subsequently sold to international wine dealers for full market value. According to French prosecutors, the organization made €2 million from the scam.
A French national has been accused with money laundering and organized fraud. Prosecutors said they will also accuse the 40-year-old Russian national who was suspected of being the ringleader.
A “large amount of wine bottles from different counterfeited Grand Cru domains, wine stickers and wax products, ingredients to refill wine, technical machines to recap bottles, luxurious goods,” electronics worth 1.4 million euros, and more than 100,000 euros in cash were among the items found during seizures, according to a press release from Europol.
Since the invention of wine, there has been wine fraud. It was at a manageable level in France until a few years ago, when a few committed professionals would forge labels and wax seals to pass off ordinary wine as something more upscale. However, things have altered in the past ten years. Now that the top grand crus are selling for thousands of pounds a bottle on the global market, it is profitable to carry out the scam in a much more structured manner.
It is stated that Italy is the epicenter of this type of fraud. This is due to the fact that they have wine expertise there: craftspeople who are knowledgeable about labels, vintage bottles, and corks, as well as a criminal underground willing to make investments.
Additionally, some customers might never discover the wine is a fake because they store it for years.
Some people can’t resist the illegal urge to make the ideal bottle and then fill it with garbage since foreign purchasers, particularly in China, are willing to spend £20,000 or more on a high-quality bottle.
