Low-end wine sold like Bordeaux: traffic dismantled, bottles seized in

The gendarmerie carried out a crackdown on Monday June 27 against a counterfeiting network of great magnitude who sold low-end wines or wines from other regions for Bordeaux, the Bordeaux prosecutor’s office announced to AFP on Friday July 1.

Several hundred thousand bottles

A hundred gendarmes arrested in the Médoc and in seven departments around twenty people suspected of having taken part in this traffic in counterfeit Bordeaux wines, the extent of which can already be valued at several hundred thousand bottlesunderlined the public prosecutor Frédérique Porterie to AFP.

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Three of these suspects, including the main instigatorwere presented Wednesday, June 29 before an investigating judge and indicted for organized gang and money laundering scams, deception on merchandise et adulteration of foodstuffs.

They were released under judicial supervision with an obligation to pay bail of €20,000 to €50,000.

A first fortuitous discovery in Gironde

While investigating drug trafficking, the Gironde gendarmes accidentally came across counterfeit equipment, such as fake labelsdetailed the prosecution in a press release.

Then in October, fake Bordeaux wines were spotted in the Sarthe, leading the gendarmes to make the link with a counterfeit reported months earlier in the Médoc.

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The prosecution opened an investigation in November.

The investigations revealed a large-scale fraud organized by the owner of a vineyard in the Médocalso a merchant, who procured wine through spanish contacts.

Fake Bordeaux sold by whole pallets

He had climbed a network of official and unofficial distributors made up of companies, retirees, auto-entrepreneurs which made it possible to sell fake Bordeaux wines by whole pallets in several departments, according to the prosecution.

Of the important ordersi.e. several thousand bottles, were also intended for mass distribution or for foreign countries.

Customers thought they were buying Bordeaux châteaux whose name and label inspired confidence, at prices that sometimes defied all competition while the vials contained low-end wines or wines from quite distant regionsunderlined the prosecutor.

During the searches, ten vehicles et a large volume of wines have been seized.

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