The Grands Crus scam that shakes Lyon

Is a Ponzi pyramid threatening Lyon‘s world of lovers of fine bottles? Several people have contacted us to tell us the same story. An individual gives them the opportunity to invest their money in bottles of Grands Crus that they ensure they can resell with significant capital gains.

Except that… “It took me a year and four months to get back the 30,000 euros I gave him back,” says one of our contacts, a wine buyer in Megève, who wants to remain anonymous. “He stood me up several times, tried to calm me down with wooden checks taken from his mother’s checkbook! I had to send someone to threaten to settle… without the promised interest. »

An alleged scam that primarily targets restaurateurs and wine merchants

We think of a Ponzi system where we use money taken from new entrants, pigeons in this case, to pay off the most desperate creditors. How many lost big? “I introduced him to friends, he took hundreds of thousands of euros from us, the color we never saw again,” the Lyon gastronomy entrepreneur told us.

The alleged scam mainly affects the world of restaurants and wine merchants. Lyonnaise swears she lost €21,900 from her grandmother’s inheritance, €55,000 was stolen from a bistro owner… Complaints have been filed.

The famous wine merchant Georges Dos Santos (Antic Wine), with his face uncovered, talks about fraud against some of his employees. “He asked them to produce wine without paying for it. He also had a problem with inheritances that he did not pay for or were very late in paying. »

So of course, we contacted the main interested party. His name is Victor Masson, he is very visible on Instagram (25,600 subscribers) and until now he worked as a “rare wine dealer, connoisseur and dinner organizer” through his company Wine Masson.

At the RVF, he makes sure he has nothing to be ashamed of. He acknowledges, however, that he was given sums by partners to buy bottles and that interest was offered in return, “but it was not a matter of speculation”. “I made money for very rich people, among the 200 richest people in France. They filled their pockets before asking me for a big interest, they threatened me, beat me, stole my vault, accessed my accounts, “said the 31-year-old young man which continues: “The gendarmerie is investigating, people end up in prison”. To be continued!