French and Italian police say they have busted an international fraud ring that passed off low-quality wine as vintage, worth up to €15,000 (£12,500) a bottle.
Six people were arrested in Paris, Turin and Milan, including a Russian citizen suspected of being the main culprit.
They allegedly forged fake labels representing famous French vineyards and then sold them at full market prices through wine traders around the world.
French prosecutors said the gang made a profit of 2 million euros from the fraud.
A French national has been charged with organizing fraud and money laundering.
Prosecutors said the suspected crime boss, a 40-year-old Russian citizen, will also be charged.
Europol said in a press release that the items seized included “a large number of wine bottles, wine stickers and wax products from different fake Grand Cru vineyards, wine refill materials, technical re-capping machines, luxury goods”, as well as items worth 1.4 million Euro electronic equipment and over €100,000 in cash.
Wine scams have been around since wine was invented.
Until a few years ago, this was at a fairly controlled level in France – with a few dedicated experts forging labels and wax seals to pass off basic wines as fancier wines.
But over the past decade, things have changed.
The best grands crus now sell for such high prices on the world market – thousands of pounds per bottle – that it has become profitable to commit fraud in a more organized way.
The center of this scam is said to be Italy. That’s because they have wine expertise there: artisans know labels as well as old bottles and corks; and there’s an underworld ready to invest.
Today, a wine auctioneer told me that old wine bottles and labels are counterfeited with such skill that even the vineyards themselves often fail to spot the fakes.
Some buyers store wine for years and they may never discover it is fake.
For international buyers (particularly Chinese buyers) willing to spend £20,000 or more on top-quality wines, the criminal temptation to create the perfect bottle and then fill it with rubbish will be too much for some big companies to resist.
