Police in France and Italy bust gang that sold bottles of fake vintage wine for $16,000 apiece

By Jack Guy, CNN

(CNN) — Six people have been arrested as part of an investigation into a wine fraud ring that allegedly sold fake French wine for up to €15,000 ($16,300) per bottle.

Police in Italy searched 14 properties and seized large amounts of wine, wine bottles, counterfeit stickers from top French vineyards and machines used to recap bottles, according to a statement from European law enforcement agency Europol, published Tuesday.

Police also seized electronic equipment worth €1.4 million ($1.5 million) and more than €100,000 ($109,000) in cash.

“The fake wine was forged in Italy, then delivered to an Italian airport and exported for sale at market value all over the world by honest wine traders,” Europol said in the statement.

The techniques used by the counterfeiters revealed a link to a previous investigation involving a Russian fraudster, which was closed in 2015, Europol said.

According to a statement from French prosecutors published Tuesday, a 40-year-old Russian man, who had already been convicted for his part in a similar wine fraud under a different identity, has been implicated in the latest investigation.

Prosecutors said the network had managed to sell a “large volume of French grands crus” valued at more than €2 million ($2.18 million).

A judge in the French city of Dijon has indicted a French national on fraud and money laundering charges, and the Russian national will appear in front of the same judge with a view to indicting him, according to the statement.

This investigation was led by the French Gendarmerie, and also involved Italy’s Carabinieri and Swiss Federal Police.

Stuart George, founder and managing director of Arden Fine Wines, a London-based wine merchant that specializes in fine and rare vintage wines, said that “it is challenging to find accurate figures on fine wine fraud because it is an activity that by its very nature is covert and deceitful.”

Nonetheless, market forces have driven interest in wine fraud.

“The surge in demand for fine wine in the 21st century… has motivated fraudsters,” George told CNN. “Anything that is valuable, whether it is a painting or a bottle of wine, is in danger of being faked.”

Fraudsters are able to take advantage of a lack of specialist knowledge, he added.

“Essentially, most people can’t tell real from not real,” said George. “If somebody has never seen a genuine bottle of, say, Petrus 1990, then it’s impossible to know when a counterfeit has been presented.”

Improving skills in the industry is one way of combating wine fraud, he added.

“Better training and better knowledge of what bottles of fine wine – and especially old bottles of fine wine – really look like would be useful,” said George. “Ultimately, it comes down to integrity and competence.”

In October 2020, Italian police broke up a ring producing counterfeit Sassicaia wine, a variety considered among the finest in the world, which sells for hundreds of euros a bottle, Reuters reported.

Bolgheri Sassicaia red wine comes from an area on the coast of Tuscany and has become one of Italy’s best-known fine wines since it appeared on the market in the 1970s.

Officials from the Guardia di Finanza said the sophisticated counterfeit operation bottled inferior wine from Sicily in a warehouse near Milan, with meticulously reproduced labeling and cases that came from Bulgaria.

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