Police say they’ve damaged up a felony wine gang that offered low-cost plonk for €15,000 (£12,500) a bottle by passing it off as a French classic.
The group is accused of counterfeiting bottles of Grand Cru in Italy after which distributing them on the market amongst “honest wine traders” world wide.
Police mentioned they’d seized a “large amount” of counterfeit bottles, stickers and wax merchandise following raids at greater than a dozen places in Turin, Milan and Paris.
Detectives additionally found “technical machines to recap bottles”, computer systems, telephones and luxurious watches valued at €1.4m (£1.1m).
A complete of greater than €100,000 (£84,000) in money was additionally seized from properties throughout Italy and France.
Seven folks have been arrested.
The alleged gang is estimated to have made greater than €2m (£1.7m) revenue from the fraud, based on officers.
Picture:
Police search a warehouse throughout the investigation. Pic: Europol
It comes following a probe led by French police, alongside forces in Italy and Switzerland, with help from cross-continent legislation enforcement businesses Europol and Eurojust.
A spokesperson for Eurojust mentioned: “By working with printing homes in Italy, the felony group was capable of re-create the corks and labels of well-known French wineries.
“The forged wine was then delivered to an Italian airport and taken abroad to be sold at market value around the world by wine traders.”
Picture:
Among the money seized by police throughout raids in France and Italy. Pic: Europol
In the course of the probe, officers established a hyperlink with a earlier counterfeit wine investigation, which was closed in 2015 following the arrest of a Russian nationwide.
The authorities mentioned new counterfeits started to appear in 2019, particularly within the Swiss and Italian markets, in bottles fitted with copies of latest security measures.
The invention of the fakes allowed police to hint the wines through distribution routes again to their supply, officers mentioned.
It’s feared that some prospects who purchased the faux wine might have put their bottles in storage as an funding or to drink years later – which means they could by no means discover out their buy was counterfeit.
Counterfeit wines have lengthy been an issue within the business.
One of the crucial infamous circumstances is that of Rudy Kurniawan, who was discovered responsible in 2013 of producing faux classic wine in his kitchen and promoting it to collectors to fund his “lavish” life-style.
The Californian was sentenced to 10 years in jail after a courtroom heard he offered as a lot as $1.3m (£1m in at the moment’s cash) value of counterfeit bottles to unwitting patrons.
Kurniawan, who impressed the 2016 documentary Bitter Grapes, has since been launched.
