Authorities in Mexico destroy 200,000 litres of fake Tequila

Authorities in Mexico, together with the national Tequila chamber (CNIT), have confirmed that they have destroyed almost 200,000 litres of counterfeit Tequila.

Authorities were initially alerted to the find two years ago, seizing the spirits from a property in the El Álamo industrial park in the city of Tlaquepaque.

Rodolfo González González, president of the CNIT, said investigations had found the suspect alcohol did not conform with regulations and its sale would have damaged the sector. It’s believed it would have resulted in a total of 18,521,232 pesos in uncollected taxes.

He said: “With the support of the authorities, we achieved the destruction of 199,000 litres of an alcoholic product, thus avoiding the equivalent of 6.8 million drinks reaching consumers that could cause damage to health.”

According to local media reports, this is the twenty-third such destruction since 2002, carried out to protect the designated Tequila appellation, and the fourth largest to have taken place in Mexico. A total of 3.5 million litres of suspect spirit has been destroyed by both national and overseas authorities in the past 18 years, the Tequila Regulatory Council (CRT) said.

González González said a total of 351.7m litres of Tequila was produced in 2019, of which 248.8m litres were exported. In the first nine months of this year, output grew by 2.5% and exports rose by 12.7% compared to the previous year.