International wine gang arrested: this is how they operated
As if wine weren’t expensive enough already, scammers in France, Italy and Switzerland have found yet another way to empty your wallet. French and Italian police have arrested a gang that sold cheap bottles of wine as if they were luxury Bordeaux. The prices? They rose to a bizarre €15,000 per bottle!
Forging wine labels
How did they manage it? The gang made labels for the bottles themselves. They produced perfect copies of labels from famous French wineries. The ‘exclusive’ bottles were then sold by well-known wine merchants, who fell for the scam just as hard as the buyers did. And suddenly you found yourself holding a bottle worth as much as your holiday to the Bahamas… or, in this case, to the supermarket…
International police operation
The case came to light when both French and Italian wine merchants became suspicious. What followed was an international police operation during which dozens of counterfeit bottles were seized and six people were arrested. It is still unclear exactly how many bottles are in circulation and how many buyers have fallen victim. But one thing is certain: the gang made millions by passing off cheap wine as the crème de la crème of the wine world.
It’s not the first time we’ve been fleeced. A few years ago, a group of scammers was also arrested for selling supermarket wine on a large scale as expensive Bordeaux.
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Source: Thedrinksbusiness
