Police smash fake wine chicken farm

The Chinese police have broken up a fake wine manufacturing and selling ring in Shandong. A bottle of “imported” wine which costs less than 10 yuan was produced in an abandoned chicken farm, according to Qilu Evening news.

The suspects were reportedly buying inexpensive bulk wine and placing it into bottles of the famous and expensive counterfeit brands they were selling. One ton of ordinary wine with the price of 2,000 yuan could make 1,320 bottles of “imported fine wine” worth more than 1,000 yuan per bottle in the “wine factory”.

The factory, which was producing branded wine such as Lachlan, Purple Angel from Montes and Cantenac Brown, was hidden in an abandoned chicken farm. It was reported that the factory sold its fake wines in a number of Chinese cities including Jiangsu, Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanxi, Qingdao as well as seven other provinces.

In the raid police found the supplies needed to make counterfeit wines including 18 production machine sets, 120,000 corks and 210,000 rolls of labels. At least 16 suspects were arrested and more than 200 cases of fake wine were seized in the raid. The total amount of wines confiscated in the raid was valued at more than 33 million yuan

This is not the first time wine counterfeiting rings have been broken up in China. In 2012, a large operation in Shanghai was discovered holding over 350 cases of fake Chateau Lafite Rothschild and 60 cases of fake Chateau Margaux along with other counterfeit wines. The total amount of wines confiscated in that raid was valued at close to $1.6m. In June this year db reported that fake wine was on the rise in China.

In addition, local Chinese liquors are also being faked after several on-line shopping websites in China were recently exposed as selling fake Laimao, a national baijiu brand, which is popular in China.