Police bust international wine fraud ring

French, Italian and Swiss police have arrested six people in connection with a scheme selling counterfeit French Grand Cru vintage wines for up to €15,000 a bottle.

Six people accused of passing off poor quality bottles of wine as high-end vintages have been arrested in Paris, Turin and Milan.

The fake wine was forged in Italy before being delivered to an Italian airport and exported for sale at market value all over the world, according to Europol, which has supported the investigation since 2021. Europol has said the fraudulent wines were exported by “honest wine traders”, suggesting they were not aware of the counterfeits.

Bottles involved in the scheme were sold for up to €15,000 each.

The French Gendarmerie led the investigation alongside the Italian Carabinieri Corps and Swiss Federal Police. Officials seized “large amount of wine bottles from different counterfeited Grand Cru domains, wine stickers and wax products, ingredients to refill wine, technical machines to recap bottles, luxurious goods, and electronic equipment valued at €1.4m, over €100,000 in cash and documents” as part of the investigation, Europol said.

The group earned €2m from counterfeiting French PDO wines in Italy, French prosecutors said.

Forensics carried out on the wines revealed the techniques the alleged criminals were using to counterfeit high-quality French wines. Europol did not reveal what methods were being used to create the fakes.

Investigators were able to establish a link between the alleged gang and a previous investigation targeting counterfeit PDO wines. They also uncovered a connection between manufacturers of caps and capsules and the label printers involved in a previous case.

Said investigation was closed by authorities in 2015. The previous case involved a Russian national who officials have tied to the current investigation.

Investigations uncovered commercial transactions carried out between Italy and Switzerland. Other bottles with similar signs of counterfeiting were subsequently discovered.

Wine fraud is a rising problem around the world, as the technology available to counterfeit labels and materials continues to develop. In 2022, Bordeaux investigators discovered a fraud scheme which saw up to five million bottles of cheap Spanish wine disguised as French.

A Taiwanese billionaire was also recently embroiled in accusations of selling fake wine. Read more here.

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