The merchant allegedly made millions of dollars by mixing together cheap vintages and trying to recreate the taste of more pricy wine varietals.
Everyone has heard of counterfeit money, but what about counterfeit wine?
According to a recent report from the Washington Times, a New York-based wine merchant was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in prison for running a counterfeit wine business for some eight years. The merchant, a 37-year-old man named Rudy Kurniawan, allegedly made millions of dollars by mixing together cheap vintages and trying to recreate the taste of more pricy wine varietals.
Kurniawan’s operation was not just a mixing laboratory, though: it was the real deal. The merchant had mastered a process where he would create his counterfeit wine, pour it into used and empty bottles of luxury wine types, seal the bottles (complete with corkage), and then wrap them with fake labels. The counterfeiting was very convincing, and it allowed Kurniawan to scam wine buyers out of millions of dollars.
Jail time is not the only stipulation of Kurniawan’s sentencing. On the contrary, the wine merchant will also be forced to pay $30 million, in restitution fees, to his customers, and to give up an additional $20 million of his finances. The court also found that Kurniawan had illegally obtained a $3 million bank loan to help launch his business, doing so by lying about everything from his business expenses to the mountains of bank loan debt he had at the time.
The kicker is that Kurniawan is an illegal immigrant, and was actually ordered by the Department of Justice to leave the country just three years ago. He did not obey that particular order, obviously, and now, in the words of United States Attorney Preet Bharara, “will trade his life of luxury for time behind bars.”
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