A wily winemaker, Rudy Kurniawan was just sentenced to a lengthy jail term for making counterfeit wine.
He was so good at it, that he sold his fake vintages to the likes of William Koch, the American billionaire, and many other wealthy collectors of fine wine.
His craft included pasting labels from expensive bottles onto cheap wine in a long and delicate process. Even expert auctioneers did not catch on to the marauder's doings apparently.
His arrest however, showed that the counterfeiting business is so widespread and pervasive, that it could undermine world businesses and pose vast challenges to those trying to regulate such illegal activities.
Kurniawan operated for many years, before the authorities caught on. He entertained his guests lavishly and was a cunning operator among the rich elite.
When the axe finally came down, the arrest warrant revealed that Kurniawan's home was riddled with empty bottles, corks, printed labels, glue and all the tools of his illegal trade. In fact the home was so stacked with his wine re-labeling tools that it was unfit for habitation, according to the same authorities.
During the last year as a con artist, Kurniawan sold more than 12000 bottles of 'fine' wine, and made millions from his trade. One of his customers, William Koch, related during the trial that he spent nearly 2.1 million in wine bought from Kurniawan.
Some however believe that he was not acting alone, and there were others behind him, who were able to implement such a vast network. They also suspect that another lab existed, which must have been destroyed.
However, wine counterfeiting is nothing new, and some even believe that the auction house were in on it.
Some con artists also rely on the fact that prized wine can often go bad, and therefore they can dodge the questions that come when a buyer raises objections to the wine's taste. In many other cases, the fraud is not exposed because the people who buy the wine do not consume it and keep it as a collectible or as an investment.
For those wine producing countries that want to curb the counterfeiting of the product, the emergence of Chinese winemakers is posing an even larger question on the future of safeguarding the quality of wines. Already countries in Europe are seeing considerable numbers of counterfeit wines in Europe that come from Asia.
Source : France 24/ 12.22.13
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